Article reprinted from: Nancy
Author: Nancy, PANews
Once upon a time, software devoured the world. Today, AI is devouring software. Standing on the long river of technological progress, the revolutionary picture around the AI big model is rapidly unfolding and opening up new application space at an astonishing speed.
Some time ago, when talking about AI, Binance founder CZ pointed out that "AI labeling and data processing are very suitable to be completed on the chain, realizing instant (micro) payments through cryptocurrencies, while utilizing low-cost labor around the world without geographical restrictions." This view has added fuel to the already hot crypto AI track, and has also led to crypto projects such as OORT that have released related products to once again become the focus of the market.
As an early builder of DeAI (Decentralized Artificial Intelligence), OORT, funded by giants like Microsoft and Google, is a pioneer in the decentralized AI field, creating a decentralized trust infrastructure for the AI era, while promoting the democratization and popularization of the AI development process through innovative DeAI solutions.
From data, storage to computation, OORT's three flagship products unlock the potential of AI.
Since the rise of AI large models with ChatGPT, major tech giants have competed to 'craft' models, leading to a 'hundred model battle' situation in the market. Currently, in AI large model training, 'data' has become a battleground because publicly available data has become scarce globally.
For all enterprises worldwide, data collection, storage, and processing, especially the acquisition and labeling of high-quality data, have reached a bottleneck in the development process. Traditional centralized cloud service providers often rely on high costs and monopolistic data collection models, and they often lack transparency and trust, which brings many restrictions to AI model training and applications, raising a series of concerns about compliance and ethics.
"One of the most pressing issues facing AI is the 'black box' dilemma, where the AI decision-making process is opaque and difficult to audit. The immutable and transparent ledger of blockchain provides a powerful solution that records every stage of the AI lifecycle, from data collection and training to deployment decisions. This ensures that the system can be audited and maintained as trustworthy. By integrating blockchain technology into AI development, we can ensure transparency, enforce ethical standards, and prevent monopolistic control," said Dr. Max Li, founder and CEO of OORT. "DeAI proposes a development model for AI that everyone can participate in, creating a decentralized alternative to challenge centralized AI companies like OpenAI."
To address the 'data black box' issue in the field of AI, OORT combines AI and DePIN business, not only improving data transparency and traceability through blockchain technology but also encouraging more users to participate and contribute through effective economic incentives, ensuring high-quality and real-time data, thus promoting the further application and popularization of AI technology.
OORT's three flagship products are decentralized object storage solutions (OORT Storage), decentralized AI data collection and labeling (OORT DataHub), and decentralized computing services (OORT Compute, the commercial version has not yet been officially launched). These three products provide innovative decentralized solutions to the pain points of data storage, data collection and labeling, and computing services.
Among them, CZ publicly advocates the use of blockchain for AI data labeling, and OORT has taken the lead in practical exploration through OORT DataHub. OORT DataHub is OORT's second commercial product and the world's first decentralized data collection and labeling solution, providing decentralized AI data collection and labeling services for developers, enterprises, and researchers, with the commercial version now officially launched.
It is well known that the success of AI requires a large amount of data for learning, especially high-quality datasets, which are crucial for improving AI model performance and decision-making capabilities. However, data labeling and collection generally face issues of inconsistent quality and high costs. OORT DataHub provides trustworthy and traceable data while breaking the geographical limitations of traditional platforms, allowing users from around the world to contribute data through the DataHub platform, such as images, audio, or video, to enhance AI and machine learning models.
At the same time, to better incentivize users to participate and contribute data, OORT DataHub has introduced a mechanism to pay global contributors with cryptocurrency. This mechanism starts with points, and contributors can earn points through daily logins, completing tasks, verifying tasks, and referrals, thereby unlocking USDT rewards—this is a fundamental bottleneck that traditional data collection cannot achieve true global data collection because traditional banking systems cannot effectively implement global cross-border micropayments. In addition, OORT DataHub also introduces NFTs as an additional reward mechanism to share future data sales revenue rights. It is worth mentioning that to promote large-scale product adoption, OORT has launched the OORT DataHub mini-app for seamless integration with Telegram.
OORT Storage can provide secure storage and management of hot and cold data, achieving enterprise-level availability, durability, and latency requirements in performance, and allowing easy data interaction through integrated AI. It also offers on-demand billing services that are up to 80% cheaper than traditional giants like AWS. Moreover, to enhance user data privacy protection, OORT adopts a decentralized data infrastructure for data management, which can effectively resist censorship and single points of failure. Currently, OORT Storage supports links to popular storage management tools like ChatGPT, AWS CLI, Rclone, and S3 Browser.
The yet-to-be-launched OORT Compute is a decentralized computing service with low cost, high privacy, and easy access advantages, capable of decentralized data analysis and processing (e.g., training and fine-tuning large models) by integrating global GPU resources; this product has not yet been officially launched.
In this process, to ensure the reliability and usability of data and to realize the globalization of the DeAI ecological network, OORT's cloud infrastructure layer adopts a three-tier node architecture, including super nodes from Tencent Cloud and SEAGATE, backup nodes from Filecoin, Storj, and Arweave, as well as edge nodes made up of personal devices. As of now, OORT's network nodes have exceeded 65,000.
From this perspective, OORT can effectively address the pain points in data collection, storage, and processing in the AI industry, while also reducing data collection and computing costs through decentralized mechanisms, providing strong infrastructure support for AI development.
Technical exploration in a commercial context, academic achievements stepping out of the 'ivory tower'.
Past experiences tell us that every new technology must undergo a transformation from infrastructure construction to commercial landing; otherwise, it is difficult to form a true competitive moat. OORT is also continuously advancing the 'monetization' of DeAI technology, building its advantages through effective commercialization paths and promoting the application of AI technology across various industries.
For instance, the global loyalty program of tech giant Dell integrates OORT Storage services to provide decentralized storage services for Dell customers, including data storage and migration; OORT has signed a three-year contract with Lenovo to achieve a 40% cost saving and a 95% customer satisfaction rate through its customized AI assistant; Tencent Cloud has become a full node provider for the OORT network, with applications deployed on its data cloud receiving more comprehensive data services and enhancing their privacy and security; OORT provides storage support for BNB Greenfield, ensuring privacy and cost-effectiveness; OORT collaborates with the eCAT IUCRC research center of the U.S. National Science Foundation to improve the safety and efficiency of electric, connected, and autonomous vehicles, etc.
Behind OORT's successful commercialization is not initially a pursuit of short-term market trends, but rather a practical need arising from an academic challenge. As early as 2018, Dr. Max Li, the founder and CEO of OORT, encountered a dilemma while teaching an AI course at Columbia University. His graduate students found that traditional cloud computing services (such as Amazon AWS and Google Cloud) were too expensive for them, far exceeding their budget. This problem sparked Max's profound thinking on how to optimize cloud computing costs through blockchain technology, which not only helped the students successfully complete their project but also laid the foundation for the birth of OORT.
Max's deep academic and technical background also lays a solid foundation for OORT to step out of the academic 'ivory tower'. As an experienced technology industry expert, he has served as a researcher at Qualcomm Research, participated in the design of 4G LTE and 5G systems, and is also a prolific inventor and technical expert, holding over 200 international and U.S. patents covering multiple fields, especially in communications and machine learning. Other core team members of OORT also possess strong capabilities, primarily coming from world-renowned institutions such as Columbia University, Qualcomm, AT&T, and JPMorgan Chase.
With solid technical accumulation, strong team strength, successful commercialized products, and a clear market positioning, OORT has also received high recognition from the capital market, obtaining nearly $10 million in financing this year, with investors including Taisu Ventures, Red Beard Ventures, Hike Ventures, and Optic Capital, as well as support from tech giants Microsoft and Google. In Max's view, 2025 will become the year when decentralized AI transitions from niche to commercialization and landing, and the integration of blockchain and AI will gradually become mainstream, having a profound impact on development in the coming decades.
In summary, as a hot potential stock in the DeAI field, OORT's continuous commercialization not only reflects its technical strength based on actual commercial needs but also reveals the enormous market potential in the DeAI field, injecting more momentum into the popularization and advancement of AI technology.
