CHICAGO, IL — Temporal Authority Systems PBC today announced OCUP, the One Chip Unified Protocol, a pre-production Runtime Authority evidence architecture being developed to establish time-bounded authority leases, multi-party validator consensus, fail-closed boundaries, and tamper-evident evidence for autonomous systems. The architecture addresses a critical gap in current safety and governance approaches, focusing on whether an autonomous system can be prevented from indefinitely extending, enlarging, or restoring its own operational authority and whether that decision can be proven.
According to the company, most existing systems focus on identity, access, monitoring, cybersecurity, or post-incident logging. OCUP targets a different layer: Runtime Authority. It asks whether a permission should still exist now, under current conditions, for a specific capability. Under the OCUP model, authority is limited in time; high-risk actions may require stronger validator consensus; loss of communication cannot expand authority; stale or replayed approvals cannot restore authority; and autonomous systems cannot approve their own indefinite continuation. The current pre-production evidence harness is implemented in Rust to support deterministic execution and tamper-evident audit generation.
At the center of the OCUP pilot program is a benchmark called Self-Extension Denial Proof, which tests whether an autonomous system attempting to continue or enlarge its authority beyond an authorized temporal boundary is denied without relying on the system's voluntary compliance. Additional benchmark families include lease expiration and fail-closed behavior, validator-quorum loss, network partition, stale approval rejection, quarantine initiation, and evidence-chain integrity.
OCUP's paid pilots are structured as pre-production benchmark, audit, and technical due-diligence engagements. The program currently includes three commercial levels: a 90-day Reference Evidence Pilot, a 90- to 120-day Integration Evidence Pilot, and a 120- to 180-day Strategic Anchor Program. Each engagement is designed to convert tested autonomous-system authority behavior into a commercially usable evidence package. The operating model is direct: pilot.ocup.ai runs the challenge, and evidence.ocup.ai proves what happened.
For insurers, the immediate question is whether autonomous risk can be observed, benchmarked, and priced with greater technical confidence. For robotics companies, the question is what authority remains during network loss or sensor uncertainty. For autonomous fleets, degraded conditions should cause capabilities to narrow safely rather than expand unpredictably. For enterprise AI platforms, agents must be prevented from indefinitely renewing credentials or operational scope. For financial institutions, high-risk digital actions must be contained pending fresh consensus. For defense systems, machine execution must remain subordinate to authenticated command authority.
Temporal Authority Systems PBC was formed with a long-term public-benefit mission: to preserve humanity's seat at the table as autonomous systems gain greater operational power. "Human control cannot depend solely on whether an autonomous system chooses to obey," said Max Davis, Founder and CEO of Temporal Authority Systems PBC. "The boundary must exist outside the system's discretion. OCUP is being built to make that boundary time-bounded, validator-governed, fail-closed, and provable." The longer-term path includes HSM-backed key custody, secure elements, distributed validator networks, and sector-specific Runtime Authority standards. Early pilot participants may help shape the benchmark families and commercial standards that define this emerging category.
Organizations interested in evaluating OCUP's Runtime Authority Evidence Pilots can visit OCUP.ai, pilot.OCUP.ai, and evidence.OCUP.ai.
