The National Science Foundation is seeking proposals to develop secure protocols for artificial intelligence agent ecosystems under its Pathways to Enable Secure Open-Source Ecosystems, or PESOSE, program.
The PESOSE initiative underscores the government’s push to advance AI research and operational capabilities. Learn more about AI advancement at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 18. Sign up now!
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Why Focus on AI Agent Protocols?
According to the Dear Colleague Letter published Friday by NSF, AI agents are becoming more capable of carrying out complex tasks that utilize open interfaces and shared standards to interact with tools, data sources and other agents. As a result, they require common protocols for reliable communication and collaboration, particularly when built by different organizations or operating on different systems. Without such protocols, AI systems cannot scale effectively, maintain strong security or operate in a reproducible manner.
What Areas Will NSF Prioritize Under PESOSE?
NSF will prioritize proposals that advance interoperability, scalability, security, open-science applications, partnerships, and education and training. The agency also highlighted security features such as identity verification, secure communication channels, cross-domain data classification mapping, role- and attribute-based access controls, end-to-end auditability, zero-knowledge proofs, robust authentication and fine-grained authorization, and secure message formats.
What Is NSF PESOSE?
The PESOSE program supports open-source ecosystems that create tools and resources available to the public, including software, hardware, models and specifications, and languages and measures for AI model security. The initiative aims to strengthen these ecosystems that drive progress in AI, cloud computing, finance, healthcare, education, manufacturing, mobility and national security. It helps the organizations grow by expanding their user and contributor communities across academia, industry and government, while strengthening security and privacy protections to reduce vulnerabilities that could affect the ecosystems’ development.
Related NSF Investment in Open-Source Security
The PESOSE effort follows a separate NSF investment aimed at strengthening open-source security. The agency awarded up to $12 million through its Safety, Security and Privacy of Open-Source Ecosystems program to eight research teams working to address security weaknesses in open-source software, including code vulnerabilities and supply chain risks.
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