Verifiable AI privacy through hardware and cryptographic proof

The NEAR AI team today announced the launch of NEAR AI Cloud and NEAR Private Chat, two new products designed to unlock the benefits of AI without sacrificing privacy or control. Powered by confidential computing and cryptographic proof, both tools give users and developers a way to use AI with sensitive data, while staying in control.

“Everyone should own their AI. Today NEAR AI is taking a major step towards the vision of user-owned AI with the launch of private, verifiable AI products,” said Illia Polosukhin, founder and CEO, NEAR AI. “Privacy and verifiability are required to maximize available AI context for users and businesses, with confidentiality and compliance thanks to hardware- and cryptography-based guarantees.”

NEAR AI Cloud: Privacy You Can Prove

NEAR AI Cloud allows companies and developers to run AI models in secure hardware environments, using Intel TDX and NVIDIA Confidential Computing. These Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) isolate each request from outside access, including from NEAR and the hardware providers.

Every request also includes a cryptographic proof that shows exactly how and where it ran. These proofs can be independently verified, giving users something they’ve never had before: total confidence that their data was processed securely and privately.

“This brings confidential computing out of the lab and into production,” said Marvin Tong, CEO of Phala Network, a confidential cloud infrastructure provider. “We’ve waited years for a system that can prove privacy at scale. NEAR is the first to deliver.”

NEAR Private Chat: Ask Anything, Safely

NEAR Private Chat is a secure, everyday interface to leading open-source AI models. It provides an encrypted, private way to ask questions – from financial planning to health advice – without worrying that conversations will be logged, shared, or used to train future models.

“Everyone deserves access to powerful AI without giving up their privacy,” said Polosukhin. “We made Private Chat to prove that’s possible. Literally.”

Now Live with Brave, Phala, and OpenMind

NEAR AI Cloud is already running in production with a group of launch partners across industries:

Brave – a privacy-first web browser with over 100 million users, features an integrated AI assistant called Brave Leo.

"The only acceptable form of AI at Brave is one that protects privacy to its core,” said Brian Bondy, CTO and co-founder of Brave. “We’re excited to work with NEAR to offer verifiable privacy and transparency, moving towards giving users unmatched ways to verify that Brave Leo’s operation matches its privacy promises."

Phala – a confidential compute cloud platform.

“NEAR makes privacy verifiable, not just contractual,” said Marvin Tong, CEO. “That unlocks real-world use cases people never saw before.”

OpenMind – a robotics operating system for real-world autonomous systems.

“Robots operating in homes, hospitals, and public infrastructure need to process data securely,” said Jan Liphardt, founder and CEO. “With NEAR AI, we know sensitive data stays private, even in live environments where it matters most.”

Built for Developers, Ready for Scale

NEAR AI Cloud is compatible with the OpenAI API, making it easy for developers to migrate existing applications. SDKs in Python and TypeScript handle encryption and key management automatically. The system supports streaming, fine-tuning, and high-throughput performance with minimal latency (typically 5 to 10 percent).

What’s Next for NEAR AI

This launch is the first step in NEAR’s broader roadmap to support user-owned AI. The platform will expand to include encrypted memory, AI agents, and decentralized coordination infrastructure, all secured by the NEAR blockchain.

“Every AI workload – from a chat session to a national system – should run privately, provably, and in a way that respects the user,” added Polosukhin.

Learn More

Documentation and API: https://docs.near.ai/api

GitHub: https://github.com/nearai

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251203353584/en/

“Everyone should own their AI. Today NEAR AI is taking a major step towards the vision of user-owned AI with the launch of private, verifiable AI products,” said Illia Polosukhin, founder and CEO, NEAR AI.