HARDWARE ACCELERATOR AND METHOD OF OPERATING A HARDWARE ACCELERATOR

In accordance with a first aspect of the present disclosure, a hardware accelerator is provided, comprising: an execution unit configured to execute at least one artificial intelligence (AI) model using one or more resources of the hardware accelerator; a watermark verification unit configured to verify whether a predefined watermark is present in the AI model and to output a verification result indicative of the presence or absence of said watermark; a resource management unit configured to enable said resources if the verification result indicates that the watermark is present. Further aspects of the present disclosure relate to a corresponding method of operating a hardware accelerator, and to a computer program for carrying out said method.