San Francisco – September 16, 2026 -- The Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) has launched the Model Context Protocol Associate (MCPA), the first official certification validating engineers' understanding of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), as monthly downloads of MCP's Tier 1 SDKs approach half a billion.
MCP usage has surged to nearly half a billion monthly downloads
Both the TypeScript and Python SDKs for MCP have each surpassed 1 billion total downloads. MCP tool calls from ChatGPT users reached 98 times their January level by August 2026, while email API provider Resend passed one million MCP calls in a single month.
The 120-minute proctored exam tests five technical domains
The MCPA covers MCP Fundamentals (16%), Architecture & Components (14%), Interactions & Execution (26%), Security & Governance (24%), and Use Cases & Ecosystem (20%). Candidates are assessed on MCP hosts, clients, servers and tools, message flow and protocol primitives, trust boundaries, permissions, and risk controls. The certification aligns with the MCP specification release dated 2026-07-28.
MCP co-creator says certification formalizes shared protocol knowledge
"We built MCP so developers could rely on one open protocol instead of writing custom integrations for every system. Since then, it has grown exponentially. Giving developers the option to earn a certification in MCP will formalize a shared understanding of how the protocol works, while ensuring this expanding ecosystem continues to operate smoothly,