Linux Foundation Welcomes TRACE to Advance Verifiable Runtime Evidence for AI Workloads

New open specification supported by AMD, Intel, Microsoft, OPAQUE and TII enables reliable hardware-attested runtime and compliance evidence for AI agents

Summary

• The Linux Foundation announced the contribution of TRACE, a new open specification for hardware-attested runtime and compliance evidence for AI agents and confidential workloads, from OPAQUE.
• Developed collaboratively by AMD, Intel, Microsoft, OPAQUE and TII, TRACE addresses a growing need for portable, verifiable runtime evidence, helping establish a common standard in an otherwise fragmented ecosystem.
• The Linux Foundation will provide vendor-neutral governance for TRACE to support sustainability and long-term growth.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 25, 2026 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the contribution of TRACE (Trust, Runtime Attestation and Compliance Evidence), from OPAQUE. Collaboratively developed by AMD, Intel, Microsoft, OPAQUE and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), TRACE creates a standard, open evidence layer that enables reliable governance records for AI agents and other confidential workloads.

As organizations deploy increasingly autonomous AI agents and open-weight models, they need a consistent, trustworthy method to prove sensitive data is being handled according to policy. TRACE creates a standardized, hardware-enforced governance record that binds together the runtime environment, software, policies, data classifications and tool usage into a portable, cryptographically verifiable artifact that travels with the workload across clouds and confidential computing environments.

“The widespread adoption of autonomous systems requires independent, cross-platform proof of operational integrity,” said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. "TRACE provides the open source community with a unified, hardware-attested specification for compliance and security evidence. By hosting TRACE under neutral governance, we are ensuring trust in AI remains open, portable and verifiable across any infrastructure."

Rather than introducing a new security framework, TRACE builds on proven industry standards, including RATS, EAT, SLSA, SCITT, SPIFFE and EAR, and creates a consistent, vendor-neutral framework for trusted AI execution. TRACE composes existing standards into a common evidence layer designed to work across enterprise, cloud and sovereign AI infrastructure. The initial specification focuses on today's AI agent architectures while providing a foundation that can evolve with future multi-agent and confidential computing deployments.

TRACE recorded nearly 135,000 PyPI downloads within 10 weeks of its initial introduction at the Confidential Computing Summit in June 2026. Under the Linux Foundation, TRACE will receive vendor-neutral governance to support long-term adoption and sustainability, with the technical workstream hosted by the Coalition for Secure AI (CoSAI).

“Runtime evidence only works as a standard if it is portable, independently verifiable and not controlled by the vendor producing it,” said Imran Siddique, Chief Platform Officer at OPAQUE. “TRACE gives enterprises and regulators a common way to verify what ran, which policies were enforced and how AI systems interacted with sensitive data across different clouds and infrastructure. Contributing TRACE to the Linux Foundation gives that work the vendor-neutral home it needs, where the industry can shape a common, interoperable standard and no single company gets to define what counts as proof.”

The open specification, technical documentation and reference implementations are available today at trace.agentrust-io.com and on GitHub. See here for more information on the announcement.

Supporting Quotes

“Enterprise AI depends on being able to work with confidential data without exposing it, which is why confidential computing has become essential infrastructure rather than an optional safeguard. AMD SEV protects data and models while they're in use, and TRACE builds on that hardware-attested foundation to deliver runtime evidence that travels with the workload across any cloud or infrastructure. AMD is a strong advocate for open industry standards, and bringing TRACE under the Linux Foundation's governance gives the entire AI ecosystem a portable, verifiable foundation to build their platforms and systems on."

– Mahesh Wagh, Senior Fellow, AMD

"The industry must move to cryptographically-verifiable AI. As agents become more autonomous and increasingly interact with other agents, sensitive data, and critical business systems, organizations need cryptographic evidence of the agent’s identity, what it is authorized to do, where it is running, and proof that governance policies were enforced. Hardware-based attestation and confidential computing make that possible at scale, creating a foundation for independently verifiable AI where enterprises can make informed decisions before agents access data, invoke tools, or delegate actions to one another. Intel is pleased to collaborate on this open industry effort that builds on established standards and gives enterprises greater confidence as they deploy AI with their most sensitive data.”

– Anand Pashupathy, Vice President and General Manager, Intel Product Assurance and Security

“Evidence that cannot be independently verified is not evidence, and evidence that expires when cryptography moves on is not durable. TII is contributing the foundations that address both: confidential computing rooted in cryptography, post-quantum protection so that attestation records remain trustworthy over their full retention period, and the identity and authentication layer that supports verification of which agent acted and the authority context under which it operated.”
– Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO, TII