Standards Infrastructure Project

Earendil, LLC is a California-based hardware security startup founded in July 2024 by Mehmet Sencan, a Caltech-trained applied physicist with over a decade of experience in chip and manufacturing technology. The company develops hardware-based security and governance technology for AI compute infrastructure. The Standards Infrastructure Project, funded through the SFF 2024 FlexHEGs (Flexible Hardware-Enabled Guarantees) grant round with $564,000, focuses on developing the standards, protocols, and infrastructure components needed for hardware-based AI governance. Flexible Hardware-Enabled Guarantees are mechanisms designed to enable verification and automated compliance guarantees that are multilateral, privacy-preserving, and trustworthy, for agreements regarding the development and use of advanced AI technology. The project addresses the need for standardized specifications governing how secure processors interact with AI accelerator chips, how compliance rules are encoded and updated, and how verification results are communicated in a privacy-preserving manner. This standards work is distinct from but complementary to Earendil's Security Layers Project, which focuses on the physical tamper-response hardware (the SquibSink system). While the Security Layers Project builds the tamper-proof enclosures and destruction mechanisms, the Standards Infrastructure Project develops the specifications and protocols that govern what the system verifies and how. The flexHEG architecture includes a guarantee processor that monitors AI accelerator usage and checks compliance with specified rules, and the standards infrastructure defines how those rules are expressed, validated, and enforced. Sencan's background spans full-stack hardware development, from biosensor design through medical device implantation at Integrated Medical Sensors, to his current work on AI compute governance. He previously worked with Atlas Computing, an AI safety nonprofit, on advancing hardware-enabled governor (HEG) components with support from the AI Safety Tactical Opportunities Fund (AISTOF). He has presented his work at security conferences including BSides Las Vegas 2025. Earendil's blog at earendil.ai has published technical content on extending hardware security standards for AI development, privacy-preserving compute auditing for cloud providers, and technical implementation paths for safe AI hardware. The company also contributed financially to Atlas Computing, reflecting ongoing collaboration in the flexHEG ecosystem. Earendil is developed and manufactured in Southern California.

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