One Year of Model Context Protocol: From Experiment to Industry Standard

The Birth of a Standard ## The Problem MCP Solved ## The Timeline: A Year of Unprecedented Growth ## Q1 2025: Foundation Phase (November 2024 - February 2025) ## November 25, 2024 - Launch ## December 2024 - January 2025 ## February 2025 ## Q2 2025: The Inflection Point (March - May) ## March 26, 2025 - The Game Changer ## April 2025 ## April 22, 2025 - Docker Enters the MCP Arena ## May 2025 On November 25, 2024, Anthropic introduced something that would fundamentally reshape how AI systems connect with the world: the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Created by Anthropic developers David Soria Parra and Justin Spahr-Summers, MCP addressed what engineers called the "M×N problem"—the combinatorial explosion of connecting M different AI models with N different tools or data sources. Before MCP, connecting ten AI applications to 100 tools meant potentially 1,000 different custom integrations. MCP reduced this to a simple equation: implement the client protocol once, implement the server protocol once, and everything works together. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on X: "People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products. available today in the agents SDK and support for chatgpt desktop app + responses api coming soon!" This same day, MCP launched its second major specification (2025-03-26) introducing: Docker announces Docker MCP Catalog and Docker MCP Toolkit, bringing container-grade security to the MCP ecosystem: Docker President and COO Mark Cavage: "Building functional AI applications shouldn't feel radically different from building any other app." Read the complete story Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse - Anthropic open-sources MCP with SDKs in Python and TypeScript - Reference servers released: Google Drive, Slack, GitHub, Git, Postgres, and Puppeteer - Early adopters: Block and Apollo integrate MCP - Development tools companies (Zed, Replit, Codeium, Sourcegraph) begin integrations - Claude Desktop app gets native MCP support - First community-built servers emerge - Over 1,000 community-built MCP servers available - Streamable HTTP transport for cloud deployments - Comprehensive OAuth 2.1 authorization framework - Enhanced remote deployment capabilities - Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirms MCP support for Gemini models - Security researchers identify critical issues: prompt injection, tool permissions, lookalike tools - Ecosystem reaches 5,800+ MCP servers - Centralized discovery platform integrated with Docker Hub - 100+ verified MCP servers at launch - Partnership with Stripe, Elastic, Neo4j, Heroku, Pulumi, Grafana Labs, Kong Inc., New Relic, Continue.dev and more - Publisher verification and versioned releases - Built on Docker Hub's infrastructure (20+ billion pulls monthly) - One-click MCP server deployment from Docker Desktop - Built-in OAuth support and secure credential storage - Seamless integration with Gordon (Docker AI Agent), Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Continue.dev, and Goose - Enterprise controls: Registry Access Management (RAM) and Image Access Management (IAM) - Containerized MCP servers for isolation and security - Microsoft announces Windows 11 as "agentic OS" with native MCP support - Microsoft Copilot Studio reaches General Availability with MCP integration - May 5, 2025: Docker MCP Catalog and Toolkit enter Beta