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Introduction
The convergence of Crypto x AI ecosystem is no more a dream. The ecosystem has experienced some amazing growth in the last few months. Decentralised cloud computing has been one of the sub sectors that has had the highest development and performed well.
Imagine harnessing unused computing power to make high-performance computing accessible to everyone - this is the promise of decentralized compute providers.
There are many players in this space including the big giants like Render and Akash, along with emerging projects like IO, Aethir, GPU.net, and NodeAI.
The decentralized compute model aims to address high costs, security concerns, and scalability issues inherent in centralized systems. By tapping into idle computational resources, these projects offer innovative solutions to these challenges.
NVIDIA has been a leader in AI hardware, significantly contributing to AI's growth with its powerful GPUs. However, the real surge in computational power demand came with the rise of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.
ChatGPT, which reached 100 million users in just two months, highlights the need for scalable and efficient compute solutions.
Training advanced models like GPT-4, which cost over $100 million, underscores the immense compute demands. Elon Musk also emphasized the "insane" compute requirements for AI, far exceeding typical web applications.
This is where the need for decentralised compute networks becomes crucial. These platforms aim to offer a secondary market for leasing excess compute capacity. The focus of this approach is to democratise access to state-of-the-art GPUs, addressing the scarcity of these critical resources and also helps utilise under-utilised GPUs to their full potential.
By leveraging underutilized computing resources and encouraging a more collaborative model, these providers aim to overcome the significant challenges faced by centralized counterparts like Google, AWS and Orcale to name a few.
Several catalysts have fueled the rise of decentralized AI, including the launch of projects like IO.net, node sale of Aethir Cloud and positive market responses to NVIDIA's recent revenue numbers. A lot of projects have also been being funded in the broader crypto x AI space.
Today’s let explore and understand more about this decentralised compute network / marketplace better - the players, the problems and what are the exciting new projects coming up as well.
