The DFINITY Foundation, a not-for-profit science and technology organization and major contributor to the Internet Computer blockchain (ICP), announced the launch of a $5 million decentralized artificial intelligence (DeAI) grant to support projects leveraging AI on ICP.
The Internet Computer blockchain is reportedly “the only blockchain that can run true DeAI.”
This is in contrast “to other blockchains that integrate AI plug-ins but rely on AWS or other centralized cloud providers for the plug-in to function.”
ICP plays the role of “an autonomous cloud that AI models can be built on, meaning they are fully decentralized and run completely on the blockchain.”
Dominic Williams, Chief Scientist and Founder of the DFINITY Foundation said:
“There has been a lot of hype around AI and blockchain recently, but AI is not running on blockchain yet. The Internet Computer will be the first blockchain to run advanced AI models on its decentralized and permissionless network in a quasi-trustless mode. Later, we will release full “AI smart contracts” leveraging work that enables neural networks to run deterministically. Many projects on the Internet Computer already depend on AI, but we anticipate much heavier usage once native Web3 AI is available. More generally, in the future we believe blockchain will play a crucial role in helping the world trust AI with its data and decisions.”
Advantages of running AI on the Internet Computer, which plays the role of an autonomous cloud, include:
- Run AI in an open environment, on a public network.
- Run AI in a way that allows AI models and data being used for training or inference to be kept separate, allowing for different parties who don’t trust each other to combine their models and data in an open marketplace.
- Run AI that is truly integrated with Web3, where it can be called by on-chain blockchain code called smart contracts.
- Full AI “smart contracts” coming soon. These will provide mathematical guarantees that a specific AI model has been trained on a specific data set, and that a given prompt produces a given response.
The $5 million DeAI grant aims to support and encourage the development and integration of AI applications on the Internet Computer blockchain. AI is already playing a pivotal role in many ICP projects, with many more expected to benefit from the DeAI funds. Projects leveraging AI on ICP include:
IC1101 uses AI to enable its metaverse characters to respond/engage in chat.
Dmail uses AI to enable its users to automatically “create responses to messages such as email.”
Itoka is “tokenizing AI-generated music.”
EMC is a layer 2 protocol that has “integrated with ICP and is focused on distributing compute power to AI developers.”
StageAI is a full-stack Web3 artificial intelligence platform.
The benefit of running AI models “on the Internet Computer instead of on a Web2 service is trust.” The AI models running “on the Internet Computer can be trusted due to the trustless execution provided by the platform.”
This means that “the execution of AI is verifiable and secure, ensuring that the results generated by the models are reliable.” The Internet Computer “enables running AI in a way that allows for the separation of AI models and data.”
This allows different parties “who do not trust each other to combine their models and data in an open marketplace.” Incorporating AI into the Internet Computer platform, “allows for a broader availability of models and data, trustworthiness, separation of models and data, and increased ownership and transparency compared to Web2 platforms.”
AI developers looking to build DeAI projects on the Internet Computer can apply for the DeAI grant at https://dfinity.org/grants/.