A new open standard locks AI weights to approved hardware

OPAQUE, a confidential computing company that runs AI workloads inside hardware-isolated environments so operators cannot inspect them, released an open standard that lets AI model builders decide when and where their weights can be decrypted once those weights leave the builder’s own servers. The standard, called Weight Custody Manifest, ships as a developer-preview specification, a Python SDK, and a public test suite covering 91 cases. The release targets a specific squeeze.