Anthropic Opens a Research Preview of the Model Hardware Standard (MHS): A Shared Specification for AI Agents to Safely Operate Physical Devices

Anthropic has released a research preview of the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a shared specification that allows AI agents to discover and operate physical devices without custom translators. Currently, when laboratory or factory equipment from different vendors needs to work together, specialists must hand-write custom code to connect each pair of devices, a process that typically takes weeks or months. MHS standardizes how devices communicate by exposing basic operations like read and write functions, along with safety information, reducing setup time to hours or minutes. The specification is model-agnostic and works through standard protocols, though it still requires human supervision as AI systems have limitations in physical reasoning.