SecurityWeek reported on 19 October that Anthropic has bought Opaque Systems. Opaque built technology that lets AI systems use sensitive data while the hardware underneath keeps it protected. The company announced last week that its team is joining Anthropic. It began about ten years ago as a research project at UC Berkeley's RISELab. Its founders include Ion Stoica and Raluca Ada Popa. Aaron Fulkerson became CEO in October 2023. This year Opaque raised a $24 million Series B at a $300 million valuation. It listed Anthropic, ServiceNow and Accenture as customers.
Opaque said its focus grew from protecting data and models to proving how AI systems and agents behave. It describes this as cryptographic evidence of what ran, where it ran, and under which policies. It also worked on open projects: Agent Governance Toolkit, TRACE, Confidential MCP and Weight Custody Manifest. Opaque's website now says the company is winding down. The price was not disclosed. Opaque has not said what the wind-down means for current customers. No plans have been reported for how Anthropic will use the technology, or for the open projects.
Opaque's customers included large software and services firms, and the company is closing. Anyone relying on its products has no stated support plan yet. The deal also shows an AI developer buying a company built around proving what AI systems did.