The Internet of Agents Vijoy Pandey, Ph.D January 22, 2025 Internet of Agents platform For the Internet of Agents platform, we propose defining an Open Agent Protocol (OAP)— a set of specifications, SDKs, and open source/free services to drive reputation, authen- tication, and discoverability of agentic apps. This OAP needs to be built with partners and communities in mind, comprising of vendors, developers, operators and customers, for it to 20 be truly open. We are starting to build those communities . A future design could include Cisco implementations of these services with additional value adds, such as enterprise-grade features (e.g., multi-tenancy and observability). In such a scenario, the data plane for Cisco implementations would leverage our switches and routers for efÏcient multi-modal state exchanges and quantum-safe security, helping drive refreshes for the infrastructure layer as well. We also envision that extensions to existing open source tools would make it easier to onboard developed agentic apps onto the Internet of Agents. AI and quantum infrastructure The infrastructure powering AI’s future must dramatically evolve from today’s systems. We need push-button hardware-software stacks that combine GPU and CPU virtualization for workload flexibility, sophisticated data transformation pipelines, and enterprise-grade AI capabilities. As the industry moves toward inference-heavy workloads where AI agents make real-time decisions, tightly coupled computing clusters with high-memory bandwidth and ultra-low latency connections become essential. This infrastructure must process agent 21 collaboration at machine speed, potentially thousands of times faster than current . This new infrastructure must also address the looming threat of quantum computing, which could render current encryption methods obsolete. We need quantum-safe security built into the foundation, implementing new cryptographic approaches that protect against both clas- sical and quantum attacks. This isn’t just about protecting data in transit—it’s about securing the entire chain of agent interactions across organizational boundaries. The success of AI agents depends on getting this foundation right. By combining advanced computing capabilities with quantum-safe security, we can build infrastructure that not only enables the next wave of AI innovation but remains secure for decades to come. The orga- nizations that embrace this shift early will be best positioned to leverage the transformative potential of collaborative agentic software. 20 We are calling it Internet of Agents till we are ready to announce the architecture. 21 Startups such as Cerebras can drive high-bandwidth low-latency inferencing that is 7,000X faster than NVIDIA DGX clusters which becomes critical as chain-of-thought and composition of MAAs start appearing in all B2C or B2B software. ©2025 Outshift by Cisco and/or its afÏliates. All rights reserved. 11