Phase 0, the first upgrade of the Nillion mainnet is now live, activating a new layer of private infrastructure for the future intelligent internet. With this upgrade, developers can now run state-of-the AI models in TEEs, store and query encrypted data on decentralized clusters of nodes, and grant permissioned access without exposing any plaintext data to node operators. It’s not just compute. Its Blind Compute, live, credibly neutral, and built for composability.
This network upgrade unlocks the foundation for AI agents, private data marketplaces, trustless reputation systems, and more. The first wave of integrations are already launching.
New Building Blocks
Phase 0 enhances Nillion’s core Blind Modules with meaningful improvements across the stack.
- nilDB now supports traditionally encrypted or secret-shared (via MPC) data storage with flexible decentralized permissions, threshold encryption, and permissionless node deployment.
- nilAI has been upgraded to run large scale language models like Llama and DeepSeek inside secure TEEs, complete with attestation flows.
- nilAuth now handles permission and payments at scale, enabling builders to issue access tokens to end users without exposing private keys or raw data.
These upgrades don’t just extend capability, they unlock entirely new categories of apps that were previously impossible to build.
Already Live, Already Building
The Phase 0 upgrade is already being put to use. MonadicDNA is enabling users to generate private DNA passports from raw genomic data, unlocking insights without ever exposing the underlying data. Nubila is storing hyper-granular local weather data to facilitate drone-deliveries and automatic weather based watering. Stadium Science is aggregating sleep data, enabling users to maintain data privacy while unlocking collective sleep data insights. Mighty Network is integrating attested AI inference into their agent tooling, unlocking new kinds of private onchain coordination.
From healthcare to identity to prediction markers and data unions, builders are no longer just experimenting with privacy. They’re shipping.
Under the Hood
Phase 0 delivers significant advancements across each Blind Module, laying the groundwork for real composable, privacy preserving infrastructure.
- Blind Compute Architecture:
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- When data is written to the network, it’s secret-shared using threshold cryptography via Nillion’s blindfold library, then distributed across multiple nodes. No node ever holds the full data. Queries are computed on encrypted fragments, and only reconstructable if a quorum of nodes is authorized, making data leakage cryptographically impossible.
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- Secure AI inference via TEEs:
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- nilAI runs models like Llama 3B, 8B, and 70B inside Nillion’s TEE infrastructure nilCC. When a model is run, developers receive attestation reports proving the model ran in a verified enclave – ensuring a strong level of trust in the system.
- Completely decentralized permissioning on nilDB:
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- nilDB now has a permissioning layer that follows the UCAN specification, a powerful decentralised permissions system. End users have complete sovereignty over the data they store and can give others permissions to read, or compute over their data, as well as revoke that permission at any time.
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- Decentralized Auth and Payments via nilAuth:
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- nilAuth issues cryptographic tokens (NUCs) based on onchain payments. These tokens encode both access permissions and usage rights, allowing builders to programmatically provision access for end users, without ever exposing wallets or payment keys. All logic is verifiable offchain.
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- Permissionless Node Deployment:
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- All components, nilDB, nilAI, and nilAuth, are now open source with deployment instructions. This enables auditors, enterprises, and developers to run their own nodes, verify execution, and contribute to the compute layers with no centralized bottleneck.
Together, these upgrades form a privacy preserving compute layer where data can be stored, queried, and reasoned over, without ever being seen.
What Comes Next
With Phase 0, the network has just become significantly more powerful. Core blind modules are now upgraded, composable, and already in use by builders across AI, Identity, and data marketplaces.
This is not the end state, it’s the beginning of a new phase. A foundation now exists for interoperable agents, decentralized coordination, and privacy preserving apps that were previously impossible to build. And with real adoption already underway, the next wave is moving fast.
If you’re building with sensitive data, trustless coordination, or private AI, the infrastructure is ready.
Ready to build on Nillion? Follow the Quickstart guide and get started today.