In an era where data breaches and cloud failures dominate headlines, trust in the infrastructure that powers Web3 has never been more essential. That’s the premise behind a new initiative launched by Secret Network and Phala Network: Proof of Cloud, a coalition designed to bring physical verification and transparency to the hardware behind decentralized computing.
Initiated by Secret Network leadership, and collaborators at Phala Network, and joined immediately by other leading projects using TEE hardware based encryption technology including Near, Flashbots, Nillion, Oasis, and others. This alliance brings together infrastructure providers, privacy networks, and confidential compute platforms in a shared mission: to build a public registry of trusted hardware, verified by both cryptographic methods and real-world inspection.
“We’re here to ensure that users can verify, not just assume, that their encrypted workloads are running on secure, tamper-proof machines,” says Luke Bowman. “This is a foundational step in making confidential computing truly trustworthy.”
A Physical Problem in a Digital World
Confidential computing, through technologies like Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), offers strong guarantees for keeping data private, even during computation. But recent security disclosures have shown that physical access remains a critical vulnerability.
Two key issues surfaced in recent months:
- Physical tampering of chips – Attackers with physical access to servers could break open chips, manipulate circuits, and extract sensitive, encrypted data.
- Opaque cloud infrastructure – Without transparency or verification, users can’t prove where their workloads are running or whether the infrastructure is secure.
In centralized cloud environments, this has largely been mitigated by trust in major providers like AWS or Google Cloud, which maintain high physical security. But in the decentralized world, where third-party nodes compute on behalf of users, this trust must be rebuilt and verified.
A Decentralized Solution: Proof of Cloud
Proof of Cloud tackles this head-on by offering a layer of attestation, governance, and transparency across the hardware stack. Its approach includes:
- Recording and verifying machine IDs (e.g., Intel SGX or AMD SEV identifiers)
- Auditable logs of any access or tampering events
- Verification ceremonies via physical inspection or video with multi-party confirmation
- Zero-knowledge proofs and cryptographic methods for scalable, automated validation
Each server listed in the Proof of Cloud registry must meet rigorous standards of attestation, whether through human-supervised onboarding or advanced, ongoing cryptographic monitoring. Large data centers are also being looped in, with outreach to major providers like Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, OVH and others underway.
“We’re already in active conversations with big cloud infrastructure players to align on best practices,” says Bowman. “This isn’t just for one network, it’s for the entire space. And everyone is welcome to participate, even direct competitors.”
An Open, Growing Coalition
Proof of Cloud is designed to be vendor-neutral and community-led. Each member has one vote, and new additions, whether small node operators or large infrastructure players, are encouraged to join.
The founding contributors of the Alliance include Secret Network, Phala Network, Automata Network, Primus Network, Nillion Network, zkP2P, Oasis Networks and Flashbots. All are welcome to join, including competitors, as long as they share the goal of building a transparent, vendor neutral registry of cloud hosted hardware. The governance model gives each member equal standing, with one company, one member, one vote. Registry updates require multi-signature approval, ensuring that no single entity can dominate the process.
The official website (proofofcloud.org) invites any qualifying organisation to add their infrastructure, sign the charter, and contribute to the ongoing development of verification standards.
A Work in Progress—But Progress All the Same
The initiative is still early. Technical details around standardisation, tooling, and long-term verification layers are being actively developed. But the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
It’s a sign that the Web3 ecosystem is maturing, moving beyond hype into infrastructure that can be trusted not only in code, but in physical reality.
Proof of Cloud may not solve every trust issue overnight. But it represents a bold, necessary step toward building a secure, verifiable foundation for decentralized computing.
As Bowman notes: “Decentralization without trust is just chaos. We’re building a bridge between physical reality and digital assurance, because users deserve both.”
