Model procurement for industrial cyber-physical systems using cryptographic performance attestation

Bojič Burgos, Jay (author), Sedlar, Urban (author), Pustišek, Matevž (author)

Integrating third-party Machine Learning (ML) models into industrial Operational Technology (OT) creates a procurement deadlock: operators cannot verify vendor performance claims without sharing representative evaluation data with vendors, while vendors refuse to reveal proprietary model weights before purchase, rendering traditional safeguards such as Non-Disclosure Agreements technically unenforceable. This paper introduces a framework combining Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) with smart contracts to enable trust-minimized, cryptographically verifiable competitive model procurement in Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS). Vendors cryptographically prove that their model outperforms a legacy baseline without disclosing proprietary weights, a process we term cryptographic performance attestation, while the on-chain workflow automates escrow, proof verification, and best-vendor selection with arbiter-based dispute resolution. ZKP privacy is scoped to vendor model weights; operator-side evaluation-data confidentiality is managed separately via synthetic, de-identified, or public benchmark data. We analyze three ZKP workflow variations and evaluate them on consumer-grade hardware, achieving proving times of approximately three seconds and sub-dollar on-chain verification costs under Layer-2 fee assumptions for the recommended single-proof variation, while identifying computational trade-offs of recursive proof aggregation. The entire verification phase operates offline with no impact on real-time OT control paths, bridging the IT/OT pre-transaction trust gap while deferring artifact deployment to existing OT tooling.

• Language: English
• Keywords: zero knowledge proofs, smart contracts, cyber-physical systems, industrial IoT, IT/OT convergence, privacy-preserving
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: 31 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 18, issue 3,[art. 146
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-181032
• UDC: 004
• ISSN on article: 1999-5903
• DOI: 10.3390/fi18030146
• COBISS.SI-ID: 272668675
• Publication date in RUL: 23.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Future internet
• Shortened title: Future internet
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1999-5903
• COBISS.SI-ID: 1024493633

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: dokazi z ničelnim znanjem, pametne pogodbe, kibernetsko-fizični sistemi, industrijski internet stvari, konvergenca IT/OT, varovanje zasebnosti

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0425
• Name: Decentralizirane rešitve za digitalizacijo industrije ter pametnih mest in skupnosti