Mission
Stewardship of the Semantic Internet
A neutral institution responsible for the protocol's long-horizon integrity.
The IOI Foundation exists to ensure the long-term integrity, neutrality, and evolution of the Internet of Intelligence protocol — the foundational infrastructure for verifiable AI and deterministic agent execution.
We operate as custodians, not controllers. Our role is to facilitate governance, fund research, and protect the protocol's core principles across generations of technological change.
Mandate
- Preserve protocol neutrality and credible upgrade paths
- Fund research and standards work that hardens verifiability
- Publish public records: decisions, grants, audits, and keys
Non-Goals
- The Foundation does not operate validators
- The Foundation does not control applications or markets
"The Foundation exists to preserve neutrality, publish the record, and steward protocol integrity across technological change."
Charter
The Foundation Charter
The Charter defines the Foundation's mandate, limits, and governance requirements. It is designed to outlast market cycles and keep protocol stewardship legible to the public.
Governance
Constitutional Protocol Stewardship
Protocol governance requires structures that outlast any single generation of stakeholders. The Foundation maintains separation between operational decisions and constitutional amendments, ensuring stability without stagnation.
Governance Process
- ProposalIOI Improvement Proposal (IIP) submitted publicly
- ReviewTechnical Council + public comment window
- SafetyFormal security review requirements
- RatificationThreshold rule with defined quorum
- ActivationScheduled, versioned, reproducible releases
- RecordFinal decision + rationale published
Technical Council
Reviews and ratifies protocol improvements. Membership rotates through proven contributors with demonstrated commitment to protocol neutrality.
Research Grants
Funds independent research into cryptographic primitives, consensus mechanisms, and formal verification methods critical to protocol security.
Charter Council
Ensures proposed changes align with foundational principles. Operates as a check against scope creep and mission drift.
Governance decisions are recorded publicly. Changes to protocol-critical rules require an explicit quorum, a published security review, and a scheduled activation window. Emergency actions are time-bounded and must be followed by a postmortem and ratification.
Change Control
- Protocol-critical changes require quorum + review + published rationale
- Implementations must be reproducible and versioned
- Emergency measures expire unless ratified
Public Record
- Decision log is append-only
- Minutes are published on a fixed cadence
- Security advisories have a disclosure policy
Research Programs
Long-Horizon Technical Investment
The Foundation funds research that commercial entities cannot justify — work measured in decades, not quarters.
Post-Quantum Migration
Developing transition pathways for cryptographic primitives as quantum computing matures.
Deliverables: Reference roadmap, test vectors, upgrade semanticsFormal Verification
Proving protocol correctness through mathematical methods. We invest in tooling that allows critical infrastructure to be verified, not merely tested.
Deliverables: Spec proofs, model checking, invariant suitesSemantic Consensus
Research into deterministic meaning resolution across heterogeneous agent populations.
Deliverables: Canonicalization rules, verifier frameworks, determinism boundariesEconomic Sustainability
Long-term modeling of protocol economics to ensure infrastructure remains funded without compromising neutrality.
Deliverables: Published models, threat analysis of incentive attacksGrants
Funding Independent Research
Applications are reviewed in cycles, with decisions published in the grants registry.
The Foundation allocates capital to independent researchers, labs, and open-source teams working on protocol-critical infrastructure.
Who Can Apply
Independent researchers, academic labs, OSS teams, and security auditors working on verifiable systems.
Funding Tracks
Security hardening, standards development, developer tooling, and technical education.
Review Criteria
Measurable outcomes, open publication requirements, and reproducible artifacts.
Reporting
Quarterly updates, artifact delivery, and final report with public summary.
Grant Cycle
- SubmitProposal + milestones + deliverables
- EvaluateTechnical review + budget sanity + impact
- PublishAward decision + scope + reporting cadence
Standards
Protocol Standardization
Working groups publish drafts, test vectors, and conformance guidance.
As a semantic layer-zero protocol, IOI requires rigorous standardization for cross-implementation compatibility and long-term stability.
Protocol Integrity
Principles Over Preferences
The Foundation does not build products. We maintain the conditions under which others can build with confidence — knowing the ground beneath them will not shift for commercial or political reasons.
Our duty is to preserve stable ground for builders — and publish the record when it changes.
Protected Invariants
- Deterministic verification over subjective interpretation
- Algorithm agility without breaking identifiers
- Transparent upgrades with reproducible builds
- Evidence-first security: detectable equivocation, slashing clarity
Security
Coordinated Disclosure
We support responsible disclosure for protocol and implementation vulnerabilities. Reports are triaged, acknowledged, and tracked to resolution with published advisories when appropriate.
For urgent issues, contact security at ioi.ai and encrypt using the Foundation's published PGP key.
Public Record
Transparency
Foundations are judged by their records. We publish decisions, governance outcomes, and financial summaries as a matter of institutional duty.
Legal Entity
IOI Foundation
Status: Formation in progress (Dec 2025)
Policies
Security
Audit Trail
Contact
foundation at ioi.ai
Security Disclosure