ZKs, TEEs, and AI Agent Infrastructure: What OP-Succinct Unlocks for Phala Network

Last October, we announced our partnership with Succinct Labs to bring OP-Succinct to Conduit customers, allowing any OP Stack chain to transition from an optimistic to ZK rollup. As our CEO Andrew Huang and Succinct Labs CEO Uma Roy discussed soon after on the Bankless Podcast, this is big news for Ethereum. ZK validity proofs are more secure than the fault proofs of the optimistic model, and the fast finality of ZK enables better and cheaper interoperability across the many rollups that make up the Ethereum ecosystem. 

But what does ZK with OP Succinct actually look like for rollups today? Why should rollups transition to ZK now? What’s the business case? 

These are the kinds of questions we pride ourselves on helping rollup teams answer at Conduit, and Phala Network is the latest example. Two weeks ago, Phala became the first rollup to transition from optimistic to ZK via OP-Succinct with the launch of Phala Network 2.0, powered by Conduit. In this blog post, we’re going to explore why Phala is embracing ZK proofs and what OP-Succinct unlocks for them today. 

What does Phala Network do?

Phala Network operates a decentralized computing power marketplace for onchain apps, powered by trusted execution environments (TEEs). Compute providers give onchain apps permissionless access to CPU and GPU compute, and in turn are rewarded in the $PHA token. Apps using this computing power run their computations in a TEE, ensuring that their data remains protected, and the TEE provides a cryptographic attestation proving that the computations were executed correctly with no data leakage. 

“Think about when you log into an app with FaceID on your iPhone,” said Phala CTO Hang Yin. “The actual face matching happens in a TEE on the phone’s hardware, and the attestation of the match goes to the app – but the app never actually sees your face.” Phala is taking the same kind of trustless functionality onchain. 

Phala primarily targets AI builders, whose programs require immense amounts of compute, and in particular builders of onchain AI agent infrastructure. TEEs make it possible to run these powerful programs while still maintaining trustlessness and decentralization.

“If an agent has a huge market cap, millions of followers, and is controlling a pool of assets, people want to know why it’s performing the transactions that it is, and verify it’s working as advertised. But AI agents can’t run entirely onchain to provide that transparency. TEEs can provide that transparency though by putting their attestations onchain,” said Yin.  

What ZK with OP-Succinct does for Phala

Phala’s transition to a ZK rollup via OP-Succinct enhances its TEE-based compute offering in two key ways:

• Enhanced trustlessness and security: ZK proofs give Phala’s rollup comparable security to Ethereum L1, allowing users to verify that all onchain TEE attestations are accurate and that programs are executing correctly.
• Interoperability: ZK rollups get fast finality, which means TEE proofs can be bridged between chains quickly, allowing Phala-powered apps to operate across chains.

ZK proofs provide ultimate security for Phala users

ZK rollups are considered more secure than optimistic rollups because they provide concrete, cryptographic proof that all of the rollup’s transactions are legitimate, while optimistic rollups rely on networks of incentivized actors to verify this on a rolling basis. That’s especially crucial in Phala’s case. The onchain attestations Phala TEEs provide that onchain agents are behaving honestly must be 100% trustworthy, and ZK validity proofs are the only rollup proving mechanism that can guarantee that. 

“Phala needs to be as secure as Ethereum for users to trust it, and that’s what we get with ZK,” said CEO Marvin Tong. “With OP-Succinct, users can follow the entire chain of trust from the ZK proof on Ethereum, to the TEE attestation on our rollup, to the program’s code execution.” 

Interoperability gives AI agents cross-chain superpowers

The other crucial advantage of ZK rollups is fast finality. Since validity proofs can be verified instantly, users can bridge funds off of ZK rollups in as little as one hour, compared to the seven days necessary on optimistic rollups. Fast finality has huge implications for interoperability, because it means funds can be unlocked and moved to other rollups much faster. 

The same applies to Phala’s onchain TEE attestations.

In order for an AI agent powered by Phala to perform cross-chain transactions, it has to be able to bridge its TEE attestations from Phala to any chain the agent is operating on. Under an optimistic framework, Phala couldn’t bridge those attestations fast enough – seven days is just too long. But as a ZK rollup with fast finality, Phala can move the attestations over with the speed necessary for agents to operate robustly across chains. 

Cross-chain interoperability is crucial for AI agents focused on DeFi, as it allows them access more trading pairs and liquidity pools. Phala’s transition to ZK means they can power those agents while still maintaining the security necessary to trust them, regardless of which chain the agents are operating on. 

Powering unruggable AI agents with ZK + TEEs

In December 2024, Tong shared his vision for unruggable AI agents – onchain AI programs that are verifiably incapable of betraying users. Thanks to Conduit and Succinct Labs, Phala Network’s ZK rollup is making that vision a reality.

Already, Phala has partnered with some of the biggest players in the onchain AI sector, such as ai16z. Phala’s integration with ai16z’s popular ElizaOS AI agent kit makes it possible to run Eliza-powered agents inside a Phala TEE. The result is powerful, autonomous agents that are nonetheless verifiably trustworthy, with no centralized points of failure. 

“Phala has one goal,” said Tong. “We want to build permissionless, verifiable computing infrastructure. A dedicated ZK rollup makes that possible.” 

Conduit looks forward to continuing our support of Phala, and to working with Succinct Labs to help more rollups make the transition to ZK.

If you want to launch a ZK rollup with OP-Succinct on Conduit, contact us here.