[2603.28622] Trust-Aware Routing for Distributed Generative AI Inference at the Edge

Computer Science > Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing arXiv:2603.28622 (cs) [Submitted on 30 Mar 2026] Title:Trust-Aware Routing for Distributed Generative AI Inference at the Edge Authors:Chanh Nguyen, Erik Elmroth View a PDF of the paper titled Trust-Aware Routing for Distributed Generative AI Inference at the Edge, by Chanh Nguyen and Erik Elmroth View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Emerging deployments of Generative AI increasingly execute inference across decentralized and heterogeneous edge devices rather than on a single trusted server. In such environments, a single device failure or misbehavior can disrupt the entire inference process, making traditional best-effort peer-to-peer routing insufficient. Coordinating distributed generative inference therefore requires mechanisms that explicitly account for reliability, performance variability, and trust among participating peers. In this paper, we present G-TRAC, a trust-aware coordination framework that integrates algorithmic path selection with system-level protocol design to ensure robust distributed inference. First, we formulate the routing problem as a \textit{Risk-Bounded Shortest Path} computation and introduce a polynomial-time solution that combines trust-floor pruning with Dijkstra's search, achieving sub-millisecond median routing latency at practical edge scales, and remaining below 10 ms at larger scales. Second, to operationally support the routing logic in dynamic environments, the framewor...