The Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated, known by its operating name Global ACI, is the single international body that sits at the top of the accreditation chain. It began operations on 1 January 2026, formed by merging the two former peak bodies: the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), which covered certification, and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), which covered testing, calibration, and inspection.
Global ACI is one tier above the national accreditation bodies (AB), and it is important to understand that it does not accredit certification bodies or test labs directly. Instead it runs the mutual recognition arrangements among the accreditation bodies and peer-evaluates them, so that an accreditation granted in one country is trusted everywhere else. For functional safety this is the cap on the chain that ultimately backs the SIL certificate on a datasheet, and we at SIL Safe think folding two overlapping arrangements into one was a sensible move.
Key Points
- It sits one tier above the accreditation bodies and does not accredit certification bodies or labs directly; it runs the mutual recognition arrangements among the accreditation bodies and peer-evaluates them.
- Global ACI is the single global body formed 2026 by merging IAF (certification) and ILAC (testing, calibration, and inspection).
- It is the top of the chain that lets an accredited certificate issued in one country be honored in another.
Example
A SIL certificate issued in Germany is trusted in the United States because the certification body was accredited by a national accreditation body, and that body is a signatory to the global arrangement now run by Global ACI, formerly split between IAF and ILAC.
See Also: AB, certification body (CB), conformity assessment
Cited Sources
- Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated (Global ACI)
- ISO/IEC 17011, Conformity assessment — Requirements for accreditation bodies
- International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC)
Deep dive: For a much more in-depth treatment, see Who Certifies Functional Safety Equipment, and Who Accepts It.