NEAR Enhances Security with Intel-Signed Attestation Tokens

Near AI Cloud has enhanced its security features by integrating Intel-signed attestation tokens for confidential inference requests. This integration adds an independent verification layer, backed by Intel Trust Authority, which verifies the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) evidence and issues a JWT-style token.

The new system combines Intel TDX on the CPU side with NVIDIA Confidential Computing on the GPU side, covering both halves of the hardware stack where AI inference occurs. This setup provides hardware-rooted security and independently verified trust signals without requiring users to perform deep cryptographic analysis.

The flow works as follows: 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. This means users no longer need to trust NEAR's self-reported attestations alone.