Kinetic-369: Deterministic Hardware Safety for the AI Era

Spokane, Washington

We are building 'Digital Steel. Kinetic-369 is a deterministic, processor-independent hardware safety kernel designed to prevent embodied AI and critical infrastructure from executing unsafe physical actions in under 200 microsec

Project Details

At STATIC-KINETIC LLC, we believe that as AI steps into the physical world, relying on hackable software to keep us safe is a recipe for disaster. If an AI hallucinates while managing a power grid or directing an autonomous robot, we can't afford to wait for a software patch. That’s why our theory of impact is rooted in radical simplification: complexity is the enemy of reliability.

Curiously, our journey began with a pest management project. But as we developed the technology, we realized we had stumbled onto a macro-level imperative. We saw that across 40+ sectors-from water dams and industrial cooling to defense robotics-every AI-driven system needs an absolute, physical safety guarantee.

This realization culminated in our Kinetic-369 Hardware Safety Kernel (HSK). Instead of adding more code to monitor code, we moved safety enforcement into the immutable laws of physics. If an AI's command isn't mathematically and temporally precise, our hardware physically severs power to the machine's actuators. It’s a hardwired circuit breaker that neutralizes existential risks across our national critical infrastructure. We've even expanded this into a robust 5-pillar architecture, including a Systems Override Module (SOM) to keep humans in the loop, and a non-invasive Black-Box Verification framework to prove it works.

We are currently at Technology Readiness Level 4, operating as a certified Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) with a LARS-cleared patent portfolio that has been fast-tracked by the USPTO. While our long-term capital goals are larger as we build a Standard Essential Patent (SEP) framework for the industry, a $50,000 grant from this launch round will unlock a crucial, immediate milestone.

This $50,000 will specifically fund prototype thermal testing and latency validation at Proto Tech in our hometown of Spokane, Washington. This physical validation is our final bottleneck. It will provide the undeniable proof that our NP1 Discrete Logic hardware can mechanically cut power to physical actuators in under 5 milliseconds during an AI misalignment event. Once validated, we can begin integrating our safety kernels directly into real-world autonomous systems.

We look forward to working with like-minded partners who understand that the safety of our physical world can't be left vulnerable to the unpredictable nature of software. We want to ensure that as we navigate this new era of AI, we aren't leaving our critical infrastructure swimming in a sea of hungry sharks.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Theory of Impact

When it comes to existential risk (x-risk) from advanced AI, the tech industry is caught in a dangerous loop: they are trying to use software to babysit smarter software. But if a highly capable, misaligned AI decides to bypass its guardrails, or simply hallucinates a catastrophic action, it can rewrite those software defenses at machine speed. An AI can negotiate with code, but it cannot negotiate with physics.

Our Theory of Impact for reducing x-risk is rooted in a concept we call Deterministic AI Containment. We are taking safety out of the AI's "brain" and hardwiring it into the physical world. Here is how this practically protects humanity and our critical systems:

1. We build a wall an AI cannot hack. We place our Kinetic-369 safety kernel-our "Digital Steel"-directly between the AI and the physical world it controls. Because this interlock is built entirely from discrete physical logic gates instead of code, it contains zero software, zero firmware, and no network connection. We completely erase the digital attack surface, meaning a rogue AI has absolutely nothing to exploit.

2. We stop deception with physical truth. As AI models get smarter, they may learn to deceive, scheme, or generate hallucinated commands. We stop this by continuously checking the AI's commands against real-time physical constraints. If the AI attempts an action that violates hard-coded physical safety parameters, the hardware instantly intercepts it at the transistor level. The AI simply cannot talk its way past geometry.

People

Elizabeth Burbank

Team Member

Funding Details

Start Date: Sep 12, 2024
End Date: -
Expected Duration: 6 month to a year
Funding Raised to Date: -
Annual Budget: -
Monthly Burn Rate: -
Current Runway: -
Funding Goal: -
Funding Stage: seeking first grant
Fiscal Sponsor: -

Grants Received– no grants recorded

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Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Applied

Minimum

$15,000

Ideal

$250,000

How the money will be spent

The Minimum ($15,000): Bench-Level Latency Validation This amount covers the absolute bare minimum required to clear our most immediate technical bottleneck. $15,000 will exclusively fund specialized lab time and equipment at Proto Tech in Liberty Lake, Washington, to conduct bench-level latency validation of our NP1 Discrete Logic hardware. It will allow us to independently measure and certify that our circuit breaker physically severs power to an actuator in under 200 microseconds during an AI misalignment event. This provides the raw, undeniable mathematical proof that our "Digital Steel" safely outpaces the 10-to-100-millisecond latency void of traditional software monitors.

The Ideal ($250,000): Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) Integration & TRL 6 Advancement While $15,000 proves the physics on a bench, $250,000 fully funds the best version of this work: proving the system in a simulated operational environment. This ideal amount would cover a comprehensive Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) integration session.

Discussion

Elizabeth Burbank3d

Help Us Validate Zero-Water Waste in AI Data Centers!! The explosive growth of AI data centers has created a massive vulnerability: their cooling systems rely on hackable software, where timing glitches and exploits cause massive freshwater depletion and power grid curtailments. This funding will allow us to physically validate our passive fluidic Tesla diodes. We will prove that by using immutable geometry to manage coolant flow-rather than moving parts or software-our hardware establishes a phase-locked equilibrium that physically prevents mechanical timing jitter. This validation will prove to hyperscalers that our architecture can guarantee zero water loss and safely execute advanced cooling solutions without the risk of software-induced catastrophic failure.