# AI verification proposal A proposal built with the Proposal Explorer of the AI Verification Tech Map (https://trustbutveri.fyi/), from its records of 2026-10-08. Interactive version: https://trustbutveri.fyi/explorer/?mechanisms=M-0007,M-0019&implementations=M-0007:I-0004 How to read it: a claim is something one party wants to verify about another's AI hardware or software. A mechanism is a general technique for verifying claims; it is "aimed at" a claim when that is its direct purpose, and "supporting" when it contributes without being aimed at it. A claim is addressed when a mechanism in the proposal is aimed at it and is not excluded by the filters; addressed does not mean verified, so check that mechanism's readiness and open flaws. Readiness levels R0 to R4 describe one record's public evidence for its assessed use and are never combined. Definitions: https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/methodology/ (roles, properties and flaws) and https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/readiness/ (readiness levels). ## Filters Filters apply to mechanisms only and describe the setting the proposal is for. None set. Every mechanism on the map was available. ## Overview One row per mechanism, read from its record. Open flaws: critical / significant / minor. The last three columns are the editors' reading of what the verifier sees. | Mechanism | Readiness | Prover | Attack testing | Hardware | Open flaws | Weights | Inputs and outputs | Training data | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain | R3 | Adversarial | Analysis | None | 0 / 1 / 2 | unspecified | unspecified | unspecified | | Chip registries and manufacturing records | R1 | Semi-trusted | Analysis | Existing features | 0 / 3 / 0 | not involved | not involved | not involved | ## Claims No claims chosen. ## Mechanisms ### Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting A blockchain whose mining is designed to be a by-product of GPU matrix multiplications in AI workloads, with public node and miner code. ([Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/)) - Assessment: selected implementation [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/). - Readiness: R3 In production, assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus. - Claims in this proposal: none of them. - Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: none. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Cryptographic & computational. - What the verifier sees: model weights unspecified; inputs and outputs unspecified; training data unspecified. This Explorer has no asset-specific exposure assessment for this implementation. Check its source and deployment assumptions. ### Chip registries and manufacturing records Recording each AI chip's identity and owner from the fab onwards, and cryptographically fixing manufacturing records, so that chips can be accounted for later. ([Chip registries and manufacturing records](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/chip-registries-and-manufacturing-records/)) - Assessment: mechanism family. - Readiness: R1 Proposed, assessed for a checkable record of which chips were made and who declared owning them. - Claims in this proposal: none of them. - Threat model: semi-trusted prover. Hardware: existing features. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Compute accounting & provenance. - What the verifier sees: model weights not involved; inputs and outputs not involved; training data not involved. Records chip identities and owners; it does not handle model data. ## Properties **In production** - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: R3 In production, assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus **Built for an adversarial prover** - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting **No new hardware needed** - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting - Chip registries and manufacturing records ## Attack testing Published attempts to break a system, including those that found failures. Testing history does not establish that open flaws are resolved. **Testing history** - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain: Analysis - Chip registries and manufacturing records: Analysis ## Limits **Open significant flaws** - Security rests on a new, informal hardness assumption (open question, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-2) [2][4]. The FP8 scheme relies on "Assumption 1 (Informal quantized-subspace hardness)": quantised products of noised matrices are assumed not to be substantially easier than generic ones. The integer construction it extends lists PoUW from more standard assumptions as an open problem. - Records cover only chips that were recorded (theoretical argument, in Chip registries and manufacturing records; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/chip-registries-and-manufacturing-records/#flaw-1) [9][11]. A registry or commitment accounts only for chips entered into it. Cankaya asks how a verifier would know it had found all chips, or how much "dark compute" remains, and notes that a fraudulent original record would mean unregistered chips had been made in advance. Halstead and Larsen propose reconstructing earlier production by auditing upstream suppliers. Related mechanism: Remote detection of data centres (R1, not in the proposal). Looks for large data centres that were never declared, which a registry cannot show. - Documents and serial numbers can be forged (theoretical argument, in Chip registries and manufacturing records; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/chip-registries-and-manufacturing-records/#flaw-2) [8]. Avellar and Grunewald note that export documents can be forged, that companies can hide information behind obscure corporate structures, and that it may be possible to forge serial numbers on chips and racks. They recommend cryptographic attestation of a powered-on chip as an extra check. - Insiders could alter records before they are fixed (theoretical argument, in Chip registries and manufacturing records; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/chip-registries-and-manufacturing-records/#flaw-3) [9]. Cankaya argues that insiders who can photograph process secrets could also tamper with production records. A commitment makes changes after publication detectable, but it cannot show that the records were accurate when committed. **Family finding context** - Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains (theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-1) [6]. Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier "needs a credible estimate of the compute available" to the actor, and that a proof "cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared". Related mechanism: Chip registries and manufacturing records (R1, in the proposal). A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs. Related mechanism: Remote detection of data centres (R1, not in the proposal). Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover. - Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Security rests on new hardness assumptions (open question, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-2) [2][4]. Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW "from more standard or well-studied assumptions" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further "quantized-subspace hardness" assumption. - Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; applicability depends on the finding's scope. Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did (theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/#flaw-3) [2]. Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity. **Open minor flaws** - Known mining speedups reduce work per proof (theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-1) [2]. Pearl lists known speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed or commitment grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. Its jackpot policy checks limit crafted inputs, and a policy check caps skippable summands at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. Pearl describes faster honest kernels or hardware as "not an attack on the protocol". - Verification does not check that mined matrices come from AI workloads (theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/#flaw-3) [4][5]. Miners choose their own matrices. Basu reports that Pearl's verification "does not check whether the matrices originate from an AI model", that random matrices pass it, and that Pearl's reference mining code generates uniformly random matrices, with vLLM inference as an option. String analysis suggests that the dominant third-party mining software contains no inference code. Basu also finds that a naive fixed-threshold check of matrix kurtosis is defeated, at negligible cost, by sampling clipped Gaussian matrices. Basu calls the gap "a design property" rather than a vulnerability. It does not affect the claim that work was performed, but it means the "useful" part of the work is not verified. **Not yet demonstrated** - Chip registries and manufacturing records: R1 Proposed, assessed for a checkable record of which chips were made and who declared owning them ## Possible additions Mechanisms on the map, not in the proposal, that the records connect to an unaddressed or partly addressed claim, an open flaw or a dependency. Pointers, not recommendations: each brings its own readiness level and flaws, and none is claimed to close a flaw. - **Remote detection of data centres** (R1 Proposed, assessed for finding undeclared data centres above an agreed compute threshold) - Bears on the open significant flaw "Records cover only chips that were recorded" in Chip registries and manufacturing records. Looks for large data centres that were never declared, which a registry cannot show. - **Deterministic and bit-exact inference** (R3 In production, assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service) - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting depends on it. ## Dependencies **Missing prerequisites** - Deterministic and bit-exact inference (R3 In production, assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service), needed by Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting **Blockers** - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Built for consensus rather than capacity bounding; verifying that declared hardware has no spare capacity would also need a credible compute estimate. (capacity bounds) [6] - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Performance figures are provider-reported, and the benchmark reports no baseline of the certified model without mining. (adversarial validation) [3] - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Bit-exact verification depends on reproducing GPU arithmetic deterministically. (performance & compatibility) [2] - Chip registries and manufacturing records: No AI chip registry operates, and covering re-exports would need cooperation from re-exporters and foreign governments that may not be feasible everywhere. (access & governance) [7][8] - Chip registries and manufacturing records: Linking records to physical chips needs hard-to-spoof unique IDs and inspections. (hardware trust) [7][8][9] - Chip registries and manufacturing records: Chips produced before a registry starts must be reconstructed from supplier records. (coverage & hidden compute) [9][11] ## What the verifier sees - Model weights: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Chip registries and manufacturing records; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting. - Inputs and outputs: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Chip registries and manufacturing records; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting. - Training data: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Chip registries and manufacturing records; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting. ## Implementations - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/) (R3, open-source project) - Chip registries and manufacturing records: none on the map ## Sources 1. pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl 2. Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification, Pearl Research Team (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/Pearl_Whitepaper.pdf 3. Pearl INT Whitepaper, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/research/int-whitepaper 4. Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication, I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09971 5. The Usefulness Gap in Proof-of-Useful-Work: An Empirical Study of Pearl's cuPOW Protocol, A. Basu (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04819 6. Pacing AI Requires Proof, Attestable (2026). https://attestable.com/blog/pacing-ai-requires-proof 7. Verifying International Agreements on AI: Six Layers of Verification for Rules on Large-Scale AI Development and Deployment, M. Baker et al. (2025). https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA4077-1.html 8. Near-Term Verification Methods for AI Chip Exports, B. Avellar & E. Grunewald (2026). https://www.iaps.ai/research/near-term-verification-methods-for-ai-chip-exports 9. TSMC most definitely has a golden record of all AI chips it made, N. Cankaya (2025). https://nacicankaya.substack.com/p/tsmc-most-definitely-has-a-golden 10. Hardware-Level Governance of AI Compute: A Feasibility Taxonomy for Regulatory Compliance and Treaty Verification, S. Ansari (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04712 11. Covert AI Projects, B. Halstead & T. Larsen (2026). https://ai-2040.com/supplements/covert-ai-projects