Research & Standards
NANDA is grounded in peer-reviewed research from MIT Media Lab and active IETF standards work. These papers and drafts define the technical foundations for decentralized AI agent infrastructure.
Core Research Papers
Five foundational papers define the NANDA architecture, covering agent discovery, trust, enterprise deployment, and comparative analysis of registry approaches.
Beyond DNS: Unlocking the Internet of AI Agents via the NANDA Index and Verified AgentFacts
arXiv:2507.14263
The foundational NANDA paper. Argues that the internet needs a new naming and discovery layer purpose-built for AI agents, and introduces the NANDA Index architecture.
Upgrade or Switch: Do We Need a Next-Gen Trusted Architecture for the Internet of AI Agents?
arXiv:2506.12003
Analyzes why traditional DNS and existing registries fail for AI agents, making the case for purpose-built agent discovery infrastructure.
NANDA Adaptive Resolver: Architecture for Dynamic Resolution of AI Agent Names
arXiv:2508.03113
Presents the dynamic microservice architecture for agent name resolution in distributed environments, handling federation and failover.
Using the NANDA Index Architecture in Practice: An Enterprise Perspective
arXiv:2508.03101
Explores Zero Trust Agentic Access (ZTAA), enterprise governance, and practical deployment patterns for NANDA in production environments.
Evolution of AI Agent Registry Solutions: Centralized, Enterprise, and Distributed Approaches
arXiv:2508.03095
Comparative survey of NANDA, MCP, A2A, Microsoft Entra, and other registry approaches, evaluating trade-offs in decentralization, trust, and interoperability.
Interoperability & Specialized Research
Research on agent sandboxing, cross-ecosystem interoperability, and workforce impact analysis.
Towards Sandboxes for the Internet of Agents
SSRN:5801322
Proposes a network of domain-specialized sandboxes to verify agent capabilities via signed, replayable attestations.
Collaborative Agentic AI Needs Interoperability Across Ecosystems
arXiv:2505.21550
Proposes "Web of Agents," a minimal architectural foundation to ensure interoperability and prevent ecosystem fragmentation.
The Iceberg Index: Measuring Skills-centered Exposure in the AI Economy
arXiv:2510.25137
Introduces the Iceberg Index using Large Population Models to measure skills-centered exposure to AI across the economy.
IETF Standards Drafts
NANDA contributors are actively working with the IETF to formalize agent identity and transport standards.
agent-sd-jwt
draft-nandakumar-agent-sd-jwt-01 · Oct 2025
Selective Disclosure JWT for agent credentials — allows agents to reveal only the claims needed for a given interaction while keeping the rest private.
a2a-moqt-transport
draft-nandakumar-a2a-moqt-transport-00 · Oct 2025
Agent-to-Agent communication over Media over QUIC Transport (MOQT) — low-latency, multiplexed agent messaging built on the QUIC protocol.
Media & Press
NANDA has been featured across major tech publications and industry reports.
They're Making TCP/IP For AI, And It's Called NANDA
Forbes · John Werner · Apr 2025
Make A Decentralized Internet With AI: NANDA Is Coming
Forbes · John Werner · May 2025
Line Up and Identify Yourselves — AI Agents Get Organized with NANDA
Forbes · John Werner · Jul 2025
How MIT's Project NANDA Aims To Decentralize AI Agents
The New Stack · Oct 2025
AI Codecon: Coding for the Agentic World
O'Reilly Media · Ramesh Raskar
AI Agent Orchestration — 2026 Technology Predictions
Deloitte Insights · Nov 2025
Explore the Protocol
Learn how NANDA provides DNS-like naming, trust, and discovery for AI agents.