Blueprint: federated specialist network

Objective

Allow organizations or sites to improve a shared capability without centralizing raw data. Each site runs a compatible base package and produces signed local updates under a round contract.

Components

• central registry and round coordinator;
• site identity, attestation, and policy gateway;
• shared base model or adapter family;
• local training sandbox;
• update validator and robust aggregator;
• independent central evaluator;
• site-specific and global release channels.

Round protocol

PROCEDURE federation_round(round_contract)
    clients <- SELECT_ELIGIBLE_SITES(round_contract)
    updates <- []

    FOR each site IN clients IN PARALLEL
        ASSERT SITE_ATTESTATION_VALID(site)
        local_candidate <- TRAIN_LOCAL_ADAPTER(
            parent = round_contract.parent,
            data = site.approved_local_data,
            budget = round_contract.local_budget
        )
        local_evidence <- RUN_LOCAL_GATES(local_candidate)

        IF local_evidence.pass
            APPEND updates, SIGNED_CLIPPED_UPDATE(local_candidate, local_evidence)
        END IF
    END FOR

    valid <- VALIDATE_AND_FILTER_UPDATES(updates, round_contract)
    aggregate <- ROBUST_SECURE_AGGREGATION(valid)
    global_candidate <- APPLY_AGGREGATE(round_contract.parent, aggregate)
    RETURN CENTRAL_EVALUATION(global_candidate)
END PROCEDURE

Heterogeneity strategy

Prefer adapters on a shared base for the first implementation. If sites require different model sizes, exchange logits or distilled examples through approved privacy mechanisms rather than directly averaging incompatible weights.

Site autonomy

A central candidate can be globally approved while an individual site rejects it because of local policy, hardware, or validation. Sites maintain a verified rollback and can remain on an earlier champion.

Security

Authenticate and attest clients, use short-lived round credentials, cap update norms, detect anomalous similarity and divergence, protect aggregation, and maintain transitive lineage from every accepted update. Do not infer that secure aggregation prevents poisoning.

Metrics

Global quality, local quality distribution, worst-site regression, participation fairness, communication volume, update rejection, staleness, privacy accounting, poisoning alerts, and site rollback success.

Evolution triggers

Start rounds on stable schedules or explicit drift evidence, not continuously. Pause when evaluator confidence, client integrity, or participation falls below threshold.