In this episode of Exponential, Dylan Kawalec, Head of Developer Relations at Phala Network, breaks down how Phala is building verifiable compute infrastructure using trusted hardware and open-source tooling.
The goal: privacy-preserving execution environments that don’t rely on centralized cloud services or blind trust.
“We try to provide a zero-trust confidential virtual machine,” Dylan says.
Phala’s core technology relies on remote attestation — a way to cryptographically prove that a process was executed correctly and securely within a trusted environment.
“Remote attestation is the proof. It’s like a third party that proves what happened in a computing environment — and then you can share that information”
This model has implications for how developers build with AI, agents, and sensitive data. Phala is especially focused on solving identity and trust for machine-driven systems.
“We are working on solutions for how a user or an agent or a machine could prove that it is who it says it is, without having to expose everything,” Dylan says.
The episode also touches on community, documentation, and open source. “I’m just really excited for the ecosystem,” Dylan says. “There’s lots of momentum, lots of amazing open-source contributors that are getting involved.”
You can find Exponential on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Whether you’re a builder, investor, or simply someone fascinated by the future of computation, we hope you’ll subscribe and join the conversation.
