NEAR AI Cloud now issues Intel-signed attestation tokens for confidential inference requests, adding an independent verification layer backed by Intel Trust Authority. The practical upshot: users running AI workloads in secure enclaves can now get a standardized trust signal without needing to manually dissect raw cryptographic evidence.
What the attestation token actually does
NEAR AI Cloud originally launched on December 3, 2025, offering cryptographic attestations from Intel and NVIDIA for AI inference running inside Intel TDX (Trust Domain Extensions) CPU enclaves. That setup already provided hardware-rooted security, but verifying it required users to perform deep cryptographic analysis of raw quotes.
The new Intel-signed attestation token changes that dynamic. Intel Trust Authority, a free zero-trust attestation service, now independently verifies the TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) evidence and issues a JWT-style token. JWT, or JSON Web Token, is a widely used standard for securely transmitting information between parties.
For confidential inference requests, the flow works like this: data gets encrypted, and decryption keys are withheld until the attestation token confirms the computing environment is genuine and uncompromised. Only after Intel Trust Authority signs off does the workload proceed. That means users no longer need to trust NEAR’s self-reported attestations alone. They get a third-party stamp from one of the world’s largest chipmakers.
