Hassan Maishera
On Wednesday, the NEAR Protocol announced via X that NEAR AI Cloud now runs confidential inference verified by Intel Trust Authority.
Intel is already a NEAR AI confidential hardware partner, supplying the isolation that protects user data. NEAR operates; Intel verifies independently. The chain of trust ends at the hardware maker, not the operator.
NEAR AI Cloud validates the Intel TDX quotes underlying each attestation and publishes the raw evidence, so anyone can examine the measurements directly rather than rely on a summary. Users don't need to take NEAR's word for the environment handling their data. The proof has always been there.
With this integration, evidence from a NEAR AI Cloud trust domain is sent to Intel Trust Authority, which checks the cryptographic signatures on the quote, appraises the trusted computing base against Intel's reference values and policy, and issues an attestation token: a signed JWT carrying its verdict.
NEAR Protocol is a decentralized application platform designed to make apps similarly usable to those on today’s web. The network runs on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism called Nightshade, which aims to provide dynamic scalability and stabilize fees.
NEAR combines three core elements: User-Owned AI, which ensures agents act in users’ best interests; Intents and Chain Abstraction, which eliminate blockchain complexity for seamless, goal-driven transactions across chains; and a sharded blockchain architecture that delivers the scalability, speed, and low-cost execution needed for real-world AI and Web3 use.
NEAR Protocol is unique because it was purpose-built for AI from day one—not retrofitted after the fact. Founded by AI researchers, its architecture was designed to support intelligent systems at scale. With Nightshade sharding, NEAR can handle billions of transactions without congestion or rising fees. Developers can build using familiar languages like JavaScript and Rust, onboard users without wallets, and tap into other blockchains without bridges through Chain Signatures and NEAR Intents. Its progressive security model, low-predictable fees, and native support for AI agents make NEAR the most practical blockchain for building the next generation of autonomous applications.
NEAR is trading at $1.67, up 2.4% in the last 24 hours.
