TL;DR | What’s in This Issue?
- Executive Strategy & Pillars: ED Mike Bursell shares four new Governing Board strategic focus areas for the Consortium
- In Remembrance: The CCC community honors the memory of long-time Linux Kernel SIG lead Dan Williams
- $91K Awarded in Research Grants: Durham University and Indiana University selected from 35 proposals to drive hardware-backed secure AI and data governance.
- Post-Summit Reach Spike: Traffic surged following the CC Summit 2026, with page views jumping +30.5% and unique visitors up +37.2% in June.
- Public Spec Review: Draft specifications for the Continuous Remote Attestation Framework (v0.9.6) are now open for public review and feedback.
- Summit On-Demand & Content: On-demand keynotes/recordings from CC Summit 2026 are live, alongside a new article clarifying real-world trust mechanisms in Confidential Computing.
From the Executive Director
As I mentioned in the last newsletter, the Governing Board has been working on new strategic pillars for the Consortium’s work for the next few years. Here’s what these will be:
- Agentic AI
- Digital Sovereignty
- Regulators & Standards Bodies
- Education, Research & Training
These reflect the recent realization by the wider industry that Confidential Computing has an important role to play and how we believe that the Consortium can help drive adoption. If you or your company have a particular interest in helping define our plans for one or more of these, please get in touch. The last bullet also highlights the fact that we’re in a great position to help others, with the decades (probably centuries!) of expertise that our members and ecosystems bring, allowing us not only to create materials and engage directly, but also to work with academia through activities such as our research grant program.
I’d also like to note with sadness the loss of Dan Williams and encourage you to read the TAC update below. We are not just colleagues and faces on screens, but people, families and friends, and news such as this affects us — companies, projects, communities and individuals – in different ways. Please take the time to reach out to friends, family and colleagues for support if you ever need it.
From the Outreach Committee Chair
The Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) continues to expand our reach and we’ve seen exciting things happening in the last few months. The goal of outreach is to do more than standard marketing – we’re focused on thought leadership, driving awareness and eventually adoption by every industry to have Confidential Computing (CC) be a standard technology adopted by every organization at the global level.
One way CCC is leading is around equipping researchers with opportunities to advance secure AI through CC. These investments strengthen trust in CC while positioning CCC and its academic partners as leaders driving the future of secure data collaboration. The CCC awarded $91,000 in grants to researchers at Durham University and Indiana University in July to advance secure AI and data governance technologies from a competitive pool of 35 proposals across 32 organizations! Congrats to our winners. Learn more.
As a follow up to the success of the CC Summit last month, we tracked engagement of the newly launched website and found a huge increase from multiple audiences in our target demographic. In June, we saw an increase of +30.5% page views, and a +37.2% increase in unique visitors. We’re excited to see the output of our new social engagement strategy and will continue to track what is most important to our target audience to deliver on the next era of agentic AI security.
Last, but not least, please check out our Outreach Resources for opportunities to engage with the CCC:
- Post on CCC Jobs Board:
- Subscribe to CCC Monthly Newsletter and submit content via content submission form.
- Read CCC Blog Posts: submit your blog post ideas via content submission form
- Use the Member Badge and link to the CCC Website.
- Follow the CCC Events Calendar.
From the TAC Chair
The TAC community is heartbroken by the sudden loss of our friend and colleague Dan Williams. As the longtime Linux Kernel SIG lead, Dan brought not just extraordinary technical depth but a rare patience and warmth that elevated everyone around him. We will miss him deeply.
There is a support effort currently underway to help his family navigate this unimaginably difficult time. If you are in a position to help and would like to contribute, you can find the family’s funding site here.
As a global, distributed community, it’s easy for our connections to stay surface-level — a Slack message here, a video call there. This month please take time to reach out to a colleague just to talk. Ask how they’re really doing. Those conversations matter more than we often realize.
If Dan’s passing has stirred difficult emotions for you, please know that support is available wherever you are. findahelpline.com connects people to local crisis resources across more than 30 countries, and the International Association for Suicide Prevention maintains a global directory of crisis centers at iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres. Please reach out — to a colleague, a friend, or one of these services — if you need someone to talk to.
Recent News
University Research Grant Announcements ($91K Awarded)
University researchers are driving critical advancements in secure, hardware-based data protection to help build a safer digital infrastructure for everyone. Through our CCC Research Fund, we’ve officially awarded $91,000 in grants to pioneering academic projects pushing the boundaries of Confidential Computing. Discover how these grant recipients are directly contributing to the broader open source ecosystem.
👉 Read about the grant recipients & their impact
Public Review: Continuous Remote Attestation Framework (v0.9.6)
Establishing and continuously verifying trust across modern cloud, AI, and confidential computing environments remains a vital industry challenge. To address this, the Confidential Computing Layered Attestation Working Group has released a coordinated set of draft specifications for public review. Cloud providers, security architects, AI/ML operators, and researchers are invited to review the draft and share input before the framework moves forward.
👉 Review the draft & submit your comments
Trust & Security in Confidential Computing
As AI adoption accelerates globally, the need for robust hardware-backed data protection has never been greater. Recent industry commentary has mischaracterized these technologies, making it essential to clarify the real-world protection they already deliver to enterprises and governments worldwide. In our latest article, we break down the underlying trust mechanisms of Confidential Computing so you can deploy with confidence.
👉 Read the full article to learn how data in use is secured
Confidential Computing Summit 2026 Recap & On-Demand Access
As autonomous AI agents gain access to enterprise credentials, APIs, and tools, relying on reactive security measures is officially obsolete. Keynotes and panels at the Confidential Computing Summit 2026 proved that hardware-based security is no longer a distant roadmap item, but the active foundation for modern enterprise AI. Stream the full recorded sessions on-demand and explore the six major signals currently redefining the security landscape.
👉 Access the summit recordings & top takeaways
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