# MCP server

An MCP server is a software service that gives AI models a standard way to reach tools, data, and prompts through the Model Context Protocol. It sits between the model and your APIs, databases, or files, and it translates requests into structured, model-ready responses.

An MCP server is a software service that exposes tools, data resources, and prompt templates to AI models through the Model Context Protocol, so an AI agent can use external systems without a custom integration for each one.

## What is an MCP server?

An MCP server is a software service that gives AI models a standard way to reach tools, data, and prompts through the _Model Context Protocol_. It sits between the model and your APIs, databases, or files, and it translates requests into structured, model-ready responses.

Anthropic open-sourced the [Model Context Protocol](https://parallel.ai/articles/what-is-mcp) in November 2024. The standard lets [AI agents](https://parallel.ai/articles/what-is-an-ai-agent) connect to many systems through one shared interface instead of a separate connector for each service.

## Key characteristics

- **Standardized interface:** one open protocol (JSON-RPC 2.0), so any MCP-compatible model connects without bespoke code. Databricks explains that MCP works by requiring each client and each MCP server to implement the protocol just once, [reducing integrations to N+M](https://www.databricks.com/blog/what-is-model-context-protocol) instead of N×M.
- **Three capabilities:** servers expose tools (actions the model can run), resources (data and files for context), and prompts (reusable instruction templates).
- **Discoverable at runtime:** a client connects, negotiates the protocol version, and discovers available tools rather than hard-coding endpoints.
- **Local or remote:** a server can run locally over standard input/output or remotely over HTTP, and it manages its own authentication and permissions.
- **Growing ecosystem:** Anthropic reported [more than 10,000 servers](https://www.anthropic.com/news/donating-the-model-context-protocol-and-establishing-of-the-agentic-ai-foundation) that were active and public as of December 2025.

## Example

Say you ask an AI assistant to find the latest sales report and email it to your team. The assistant calls a database MCP server to pull the report, then calls an email MCP server to send it, choosing each tool on its own.

You can see this pattern in production today. [Parallel's Search API](https://parallel.ai/products/search) ships as a [Search MCP server](https://parallel.ai/blog/search-mcp-server) for grounding agents in real-time data from the open web.

![Parallel's Search API product page, which is available as an MCP server for AI agents.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/5hzduz3y/production/3c7ad24e4f405fa3ae721808476c976aa6549578-1920x1080.png)

_Parallel's __[Search API](https://parallel.ai/products/search)__ is available as an MCP server, so agents can add web search through the same standard._

## Related terms

- [Model Context Protocol](https://parallel.ai/articles/what-is-mcp): the open standard every MCP server implements.
- [AI agents](https://parallel.ai/articles/what-is-an-ai-agent): the systems that use MCP servers to reach tools and data.
- [Web search API](https://parallel.ai/articles/what-is-a-web-search-api): a common capability an MCP server can expose to a model.

## FAQ

**Is an MCP server a real server?**

It's a software service rather than a physical machine, and it can run locally on your computer or remotely in the cloud.

**What is the difference between an MCP server and an API?**

A traditional API exposes fixed endpoints you call with hard-coded logic, while an MCP server exposes tools the model can discover and choose on its own at runtime.

**Who created MCP?**

Anthropic [open-sourced MCP](https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol) in November 2024, and it's now a founding project of the [Agentic AI Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-formation-of-the-agentic-ai-foundation) under the Linux Foundation.

Ready to give your agents web search and research through the same standard? [Start Building](https://docs.parallel.ai/home) with Parallel.