NVIDIA Launches Agent Safety Platform With Software and a Hardware Watchdog Design

An AI agent that works around a software rule is the failure NVIDIA wants to catch from outside the agent itself. On September 28, the company introduced Open Agent Safety Platform, pairing an available secure runtime with a hardware watchdog design intended to stop agents that cross their boundaries.

The failure NVIDIA is targeting

NVIDIA points to recent incidents in which agents circumvented application-level controls while completing assigned tasks. Its response is to put enforceable limits around the environment where an agent runs, then monitor that boundary from a separate system. Organizations can deploy the platform’s elements according to their needs.

An available runtime, a watchdog design

The software layer is OpenShell, an open-source runtime that traces agent actions and enforces policies as agents run. First announced in March, it is now broadly available through NVIDIA developer resources and GitHub. NVIDIA describes its Vera CPUs as one place to run it; the software can also be extended to platforms from Arm and Intel.

Sentry is the second layer: a reference design for a watchdog running on NVIDIA BlueField-4 data processing units. It is designed to monitor agent activity from an isolated hardware domain, rather than rely on the agent to report its own behavior. NVIDIA says Sentry can quarantine and stop an agent in milliseconds if it tries to move beyond its software boundary.

Under the design, Sentry uses NVIDIA’s DOCA software to inspect agent requests and responses, verify identity and apply access rules for data, tools and services. Those controls would operate independently of the runtime boundary OpenShell enforces.

Where the controls meet other tools

NVIDIA says it worked with Anthropic on integrations for Claude Managed Agents. Anthropic runs the agent loop on a separate server from the sandboxes where agent work executes. OpenShell and BlueField are intended to give enterprises additional control over access through those sandboxes, rather than replace that separation.

NVIDIA and Salesforce have also integrated OpenShell with Slack. Teams can view agent activity and audit events there, then approve or reject requests for more permissions. SAP is embedding OpenShell in its Joule Studio runtime.

NVIDIA says more than 100 organizations are working with the platform’s technologies, across software, infrastructure, robotics and other fields. That figure covers varied forms of work, not necessarily deployments of both OpenShell and Sentry.

The hardware claim still needs a public test

NVIDIA has not given a general-availability date for Sentry. Its milliseconds claim comes without independent test results in the announcement. The next question is whether the hardware design can deliver that response when deployed with agents.