MCP joins the Linux Foundation: What this means for developers building the next era of AI tools and agents

AI development has experienced significant growth, with over 1.1 million public GitHub repositories importing large language model SDKs and nearly 700,000 new AI repositories being created. This expansion has led to challenges in connecting AI models to external tools and systems, which the Model Context Protocol (MCP) aims to address. Initially developed by Anthropic, MCP emerged as a solution to the fragmented and inefficient integration landscape, providing a vendor-neutral protocol that allows models and systems to communicate seamlessly. Its rapid adoption is attributed to its open-source foundation and shared stewardship, which facilitated contributions from companies like GitHub and Microsoft, leading to features such as OAuth flows and enhanced tool schemas. With the transition of MCP governance to the Linux Foundation, it is poised to become a stable industry standard, offering developers predictable, secure, and scalable ways to integrate AI models into their workflows. This move aligns with the growing need for consistent AI tooling and positions MCP as a key infrastructure component in the evolving landscape of AI development.