So one of the potential use cases mentioned is for secure data transfer.

So here's my question: Could FHE hardware be used to extremely quickly and reliably secure something like a database connection?

I looked through Gemini, and it says the following:

"Zama are building libraries that use FHE accelerators to allow "Confidential Smart Contracts" or private AI queries. You could send a highly sensitive health query to an AI, and the AI hardware would process it and send the answer back without the AI company ever knowing what you asked."

https://www.zama.org/

Which is why I ask. Because if you have a backdoor into the hardware, as either a corporation or a government, then you can get access to those "very sensitive and fully secured communications".

They also discuss a crypto / smart contracts use case, and advertise " securing L1 or L2".