Currently, hardware provided by a provider is verified using a decentralized network of Auditors on Akash. While this approach is practical for a limited set of providers, the manual verification is proving challenging at scale, even more critical when incentives go onchain and are distributed without a human in the loop. Hardware Verification using Trusted Execution minimizes trust required to verify the accuracy of hardware provided by the providers on Akash network and serves as a fundamental building block for enabling Confidential Computing capabilities, as detailed in AEP-65.
The concept of virtual machines (VMs) for the Akash Network revolves around leveraging decentralized cloud computing resources to deploy, manage, and scale Virtual Machines securely and cost-effectively.
Public clouds (like AWS, Azure and GCP) support Confindential Computing because some customers request this before they agree to migrate workloads from their own DCs to public cloud infrastructure. While a vast majority of users don't ask the public clouds for this (and just blindly "trust" them) this is likely to become a challenge for Akash's growth particularly because infractstructure on Akash is owned by 10s if not 100s of independent providers.
This RFP seeks proposals from established Layer 1 protocols to become the shared-security provider for the Akash Network, a decentralized cloud computing marketplace on the Cosmos SDK. The goal is to transition from Akash's sovereign chain to a shared-security model to address high capital inefficiency from AKT staking and excessive operational overhead. This move will adopt a pay-per-use security model, reducing the liquidity burden and allowing the team to focus on product innovation, particularly for GPU-intensive AI workloads. The partner must ensure scalable, robust, and decentralized security, maintaining strong IBC interoperability. Proposals must detail the L1's Security Model, Technical Integration, Scalability, Governance, Economic/Legal Considerations, and Ecosystem Profile to enable Akash to leverage external security while preserving application sovereignty.