Challenge & Opportunity

The Challenge

Artificial intelligence is an incredible driver of technological progress and innovation in the apps and services we rely on every day, both at the consumer and enterprise levels. However in today’s landscape AI compute power is heavily centralized in the hands of a few major corporations. This presents significant barriers to innovation and accessibility, as well as direct disadvantages for consumers.

• High Costs: Centralized providers control pricing, making advanced AI too expensive for smaller businesses and users, stifling broader adoption and innovation.

• Reduced Consumer Choice: With a few corporations controlling AI, consumers face limited options and less customization, hindering niche innovation.

• Barriers to Innovation: Smaller developers lack access to necessary resources, restricting their ability to contribute and innovate within the AI ecosystem.

• Monopolistic Practices: Dominant companies can limit competition through restrictive practices, reducing innovation and industry diversity over time.

• Limited Community Input: Centralized systems often overlook user feedback, leading to decisions that may not align with consumer needs or preferences.

• Data Privacy Risks: Centralized AI relies on vast amounts of personal data, putting consumer privacy at risk and often leaving users with little control over how their data is handled.

• Lack of Transparency: Centralized AI often operates as a “black box,” providing limited insight into decision-making, which can lead to biased or unfair outcomes without consumer understanding.

Consider the implications of this question: What will our future be like if just a few companies control how AI evolves?

Simply put, the centralized control of AI resources has created an opportunity for disruption and a pressing need for a more democratic and efficient approach to AI computing. A decentralized approach isn’t just an alternative — it’s a necessity for the future of AI development.

The Opportunity

DePIN networks present an ideal solution to the challenges outlined above. The combination of blockchain and cryptocurrency with a distributed network of smaller-scale resources has the potential to surpass the overall compute power held by a single centralized entity and share value among contributing stakeholders in a way that centralized firms simply could not.

Cryptocurrencies can be used as incentives for individual owners to contribute compute power from personal and privately owned devices. Blockchain layers can be utilized to track compute demand, and process payments to contributors in a trustless fashion.

What makes DePIN exciting is that an entire infrastructure network can be controlled by its respective owners, who each operate and own a piece of the network. This removes the need for a single centralized entity, and overcomes many of the challenges presented by centralized and monopolistic control of compute power.

Now what makes DePIN revolutionary is, when aggregated, the total compute power and storage can easily surpass a single centrally controlled data center. DePINs can support scale larger than a centralized entity ever could.

Think of the countless personal devices that sit idle, with compute potential untapped. It is cheaper to create and grow a network of smaller scale resources than it is to build new data centers. A DePIN based infrastructure is much better aligned to serve the growing needs of the AI industry.