FRYX-DTIF: A Digital Trust and Interoperability Architecture for Autonomous Science and Sovereign Discovery Economies

Autonomous scientific systems integrating artificial intelligence and robotic laboratory automation are transforming the structure of scientific discovery. While AI systems can generate experimental hypotheses at unprecedented scale, existing research infrastructures lack standardized architectures for interoperability, reproducibility, and trust verification.This paper introduces the Digital Trust & Interoperability Framework (DTIF), a unified architecture designed to support trustworthy and sovereign autonomous research ecosystems.The framework integrates three core components:• Self-Driving Laboratory (SDL) Maturity Model — a six-level classification system for laboratory autonomy ranging from manual experimentation (L0) to sovereign autonomous discovery ecosystems (L5).• Digital Trust Score (DTS) — a quantitative reliability metric for evaluating autonomous research agents using verifiability, observability, traceability, and model uncertainty.• FRYX Interoperability Protocol — a layered coordination architecture enabling communication and collaboration among heterogeneous AI models, robotic laboratories, and distributed research agents.The paper also introduces the concept of the Discovery Economy, in which networks of autonomous laboratories generate scientific knowledge, validated data assets, and economically valuable discoveries through continuous experimentation.Together, the DTIF architecture provides a governance-ready foundation for trustworthy autonomous science and next-generation AI-driven research infrastructures.