REQUEST EVALUATION
ABOUT xGTT
Background
Technology has become infrastructure. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, quantum, cloud systems, cybersecurity, and other critical and emerging technologies increasingly shape how economies operate, information moves, governments function, and people live. The organizations that develop and control these technologies wield outsized influence on civilization.
The Global Trusted Tech Standard (xGTT), published and maintained by the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, was created to bridge the gap between technological competence and democratic compatibility. xGTT establishes a common, evidence-based framework for evaluating the trustworthiness of companies operating across critical and emerging technology sectors, bringing technological excellence and compatibility with democratic values together into a single, evaluable standard.
Today, governments, companies, universities, and other institutions have no consistent way to apply that concept across technologies and borders. Different countries use different criteria, private-sector organizations often construct their own frameworks, and most existing standards focus on technical characteristics, not democratic values.
The xGTT Standard provides a common ruler. It translates trust into criteria that can be evaluated against publicly verifiable evidence and applied to procurement, investment, partnerships, supply chains, research relationships, and other decisions.
The Krach Institute does not score, rank, certify, badge, or declare individual companies trustworthy or untrustworthy. It publishes and maintains the xGTT Standard. Each institution applies it independently according to its own authority.
LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
xGTT Board of Governors
The xGTT Standard is guided by a Board of Governors, comprising twenty distinguished international experts spanning government, industry, academia, and civil society across nine countries:d
Audrey Tang
BOARD CHAIR
Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador-at-Large; Author of Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy
Roberto Baldoni
Founder and First General Director, National Cybersecurity Agency of Italy; Honorary Professor, University of Rome La Sapienza
Isabel Crane
Former Head of OECD's Trust in Business Initiative and the Blue Dot Network
Alex Capri
Senior Fellow and Lecturer, NUS Business School; Author of Techno-Nationalism
Ricardo "Rick" Echevarria
Former Vice President of Security Solutions, Intel; Technology Commissioner, International Olympic Committee
Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili
Founder and Chairperson, School of Politics, Policy and Governance; Former Vice President (Africa), World Bank
Fernando Garibay
Polymath, Producer, Academic; Founder & CEO, The Garibay Institute
Melanie Garson
Director of Research and Insight, ISTARI; Associate Professor, University College London
Dan Goldin
Former and Longest-Serving Administrator of NASA
Yasmin Green
CEO, Jigsaw
Takashi Oda
Director, Business Strategy, Corporate Strategy Planning, NTT
Roman Pačka
Chief Advisor to the Director, National Cyber and Information Security Agency of the Czech Republic
Heather Petersen
Former Head of Trust Strategy & Marketing, DocuSign
Arvind Raman
Dean of Engineering, Purdue University
David Roberts
Former CEO, Applied Research Institute
PRINCIPLES
The xGTT Standard was built to turn trust from a principle into something that can be examined. Its design reflects a few deliberate choices.
01
Public evidence only.
Every finding rests on a specific, publicly checkable record. Nothing is inferred, assumed, or guessed. Adjudicated conduct and formal government actions carry the greatest weight, followed by independently verified documentation such as certifications and audited filings, followed by company-published policies.
02
No scoring, only criteria-by-criteria findings.
xGTT does not calculate a 0-100 score, weight categories, tally verdicts, or produce a ranking. Each applicable criterion receives a PASS, FAIL, UNCLEAR, or N/A, with the evidence behind it. UNCLEAR is a legitimate outcome where the public record does not settle the question.
03
A threshold gate, then four categories.
Evaluation starts with a Red-Line Gate — 10 disqualifiers where a confirmed finding ends the evaluation. Companies that clear it are evaluated against 21 criteria across four dimensions of trust: Legal & Regulatory Compliance, Transparency & Documentation, Technical Security Practices, and Democratic Government Trust.
04
Grounded in existing democratic practice.
xGTT does not invent its own definition of trust. Criteria are mapped to real laws, regulations, government programs, and established standards across 18 technologically advanced democracies, documented in Criteria Provenance, and tied to authoritative public sources in the Jurisdiction Registry Index.
05
Applies only where relevant.
The 15 critical and emerging technology sectors define where xGTT applies. Sector and business-model gates determine which criteria apply. A criterion that does not fit a company’s business is marked N/A.
06
Reproducible and contestable.
With a common methodology, common source architecture, and common instructions, any decision-maker can run the same evaluation and check it against its sources. Reports link to the exact record used for each finding.
GOVERNANCE
How the xGTT Standard Is Maintained.
The Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue publishes and maintains the xGTT Standard. It does not evaluate, score, rank, certify, or make decisions about individual companies. Users apply xGTT independently, according to their own needs, responsibilities, and authority.
The xGTT Standard is guided by a Board of Governors comprising 20 distinguished international experts from 9 countries, chaired by Taiwan Cyber Ambassador-at-Large Audrey Tang, spanning government, industry, academia, and civil society. The Board reviews the criteria on a standing basis so xGTT adapts as underlying technologies and the risks they carry evolve.
That maintenance is shaped by testing. Leading up to the release of xGTT v1.0, the Krach Institute stress-tested the methodology through 16 testing rounds covering 20+ companies across AI, semiconductors, telecommunications, robotics, cybersecurity, biotechnology, and space, with six different AI systems producing 250+ evaluation reports.
The supporting materials are maintained alongside the xGTT Standard: the Public Methodology Guide defines what is evaluated and what counts as evidence; the Jurisdiction Registry Index keeps authoritative sources current across the 18 reference jurisdictions; and Criteria Provenance shows the law, regulation, standard, or established practice behind each rule.