OORT's vision: Providing trustworthy AI to humans
Since 2023, AI technologies such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and OpenAI Sora have had a significant impact on us. However, little is known about how they collect and use data and the biases that may exist therein.
Imagine if an AI application learns mainly from data collected from a particular group. This may cause AI to inadvertently favor, bias, or disadvantage certain groups when making decisions. To avoid this, it is necessary to use diverse data from different groups. In this way, AI can be fair and inclusive.
As these technologies become more important in our lives, trust is critical. Trust is built as humans come together and learn about each other’s abilities and strengths. To better trust AI, we should study how it works, ensure it uses unbiased data, and include a variety of perspectives during its design. This approach, which emphasizes transparency and diverse input, is critical to building AI that everyone can trust and benefit from.
As OORT continues to lead these technological advances, its vision is clear and concise: to build an ecosystem with trust at its core, ensuring that humans and AI can prosper together.
OORT's mission: decentralized AI cloud platform
OORT is a decentralized AI cloud platform founded in May 2021. Our network leverages global resources from data centers to edge devices and integrates OORT's proprietary blockchain-based verification layer. OORT provides a range of services including data collection and annotation, data storage, and model training. We aim to help AI developers through a decentralized network and lay the foundation for them to build fairer and more efficient AI applications.
Specifically, OORT proposes a new way to develop AI applications in an open and transparent manner, covering key stages such as data collection and annotation, model training and fine-tuning. By introducing community participation in these stages, we aim to make AI easier to understand and promote collaboration from the beginning. Our goal is to democratize and popularize the AI development process, make it more inclusive, and build trust in AI products through everyone's active participation.
Figure 1. Centralized AI | All stages are completely controlled by tech giants and are completely opaque to the public.
How Centralized AI (CeAI) Works
First, let's explore how centralized AI works. Companies like OpenAI and Google use their own data centers to develop and run their AI systems in a centralized manner, and the entire process is not open to the public. Users do not know how the various stages of AI development are carried out, nor do they know how the data is used for model training.
Figure 2. Decentralized AI | Every stage is contributed by the community, and the entire process is open and transparent
How Decentralized AI (DeAI) Works
In contrast, OORT leverages blockchain technology to redefine each stage of AI development, as shown in Figure 2.
data collection
Anyone around the world can share data using a PC or smartphone and earn rewards.
Data preprocessing
Users can use smartphones and computers to help pre-process data, such as data annotation for AI projects. After processing, the data will be updated to the OORT decentralized cloud platform, and the "hash value" of the processed data set will be stored on the blockchain.
Data model design
Community members work together to create AI models that anyone can use and build upon, making innovation easier and more democratized.
Model training and fine-tuning
AI engineers can connect to an underutilized global computing network at a lower cost than services like AWS or Google Cloud. What’s more, the timestamps of the training process and the datasets used are recorded on our blockchain, enhancing transparency and accountability.
Model deployment
Instead of relying on large servers such as AWS to deploy AI models, AI application and software developers can now deploy models directly on their devices, such as smartphones and computers. This enables the use of AI applications offline, ensuring that personal data is secure and not transmitted to third parties. By leveraging home devices, users can enjoy the flexibility and convenience of AI tools anytime, anywhere.
OORT Products
OORT aims to help developers build AI in a transparent, decentralized and trustworthy way. Unlike other closed-development AI systems, OORT's products encourage community participation. This means that users are no longer just bystanders, but can actively participate in the process of promoting the advancement of AI technology. We aim to democratize and diversify artificial intelligence. As of June 2024, OORT has served more than 10,000 corporate and individual customers worldwide, including Dell, Lenovo Printing, Binance Smart Chain, etc.
OORT Datahub
Provide data sets for AI projects. The data is provided and pre-processed by the OORT community from all over the world. The blockchain technology integrated in the product ensures that every step of the operation has a clear and permanent record.
OORT Storage
Integrates global storage servers such as Seagate and Tencent Cloud to provide a decentralized object storage solution with performance comparable to Amazon AWS S3, saving up to 60% of costs.
OORT Compute
Integrate and utilize GPUs from around the world to provide better cost-effectiveness for AI model training and inference. Expected to be launched in 2024.
OORT’s Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePin)
OORT's decentralized infrastructure is the underlying foundation of its products. OORT's DePin network consists of two main parts: physical device nodes distributed around the world that provide storage and computing power, and the OORT mainnet (Olympus protocol) that links these devices and ensures the safe and reliable operation of these nodes through protocols.
Three types of physical nodes in OORT
OORT’s DePin network consists of three types of physical nodes:
Supernodes: Servers from OORT partners such as Seagate and Tencent Cloud. They are responsible for tasks such as training AI models and storing large amounts of data.
Archive nodes: Nodes from the Filecoin and Arweave networks that are responsible for cold data storage. They are mainly used to back up AI datasets.
Edge nodes: Personal devices owned by users, such as the "Deimos" edge device customized for OORT, laptops, and PCs. They are responsible for local data storage, data preprocessing, and running AI models to make decisions quickly.
Olympus Protocol (Mainnet)
The Olympus protocol is a public blockchain protocol developed by OORT that can be used by any interested organization or individual. The technical details and performance description of the protocol can be found in the Yellow Paper. Olympus uses a consensus algorithm protected by a US patent called "Proof of Honesty" (PoH) to connect nodes from all over the world in the OORT DePin network. This algorithm ensures that all nodes complete their assigned tasks honestly and transparently, and dynamically optimizes and uses network resources in a distributed manner.
Learn more about the Proof-of-Honest consensus algorithm.
Token Economics
OORT has a utility token native to its protocol network. This token is used to pay for user products, stake for rewards, and enable community members to participate in project decision-making.
Paying for OORT products: Users can use OORT products by paying with fiat currency via credit card. However, using OORT tokens to pay for purchases will provide additional discounts.
Staking: Currently, there are two ways for users to stake OORT tokens:
Tokens can be placed in staking pools to obtain staking rewards, including DeFi, OORT Earn, and DEX liquidity staking pools.
Tokens can be delegated to node providers through bonding pools (e.g. OORT Boost), who use them for staking of network nodes. You will receive a portion of the mining rewards from the node providers.
Governance: OORT encourages community members to make suggestions and make decisions that are beneficial to the project, such as product fee setting or community rule making. Specifically, if a user wants to make a suggestion, they need to deposit a specific number of tokens, which will be returned after the proposal is passed; otherwise, the tokens will be allocated to the node providers that support the OORT network.
OORT’s competitive advantages in the decentralized AI space
In the field of decentralized AI, competition is fierce in various fields, such as AI data management, AI model training, and AI algorithm development. What makes OORT stand out?
OORT provides a one-stop democratized platform for AI project development, where any AI developer can find all the resources needed for the entire AI application development cycle, and focuses on low cost and transparency of the AI development process.
OORT's three products work together seamlessly to achieve the best AI development outcomes and enterprise-grade performance experience.
Investors and team
As of January 2024, OORT has received a total investment of US$10 million from institutional investors including Taisu Ventures (i.e. Emurgo - Cardano Venture Arm), Red Beard Ventures (a fund funded by A16Z and Animoca Brands), Angelist, Trinity Venture Capital, Linkvc and Waterdrip Capital, as well as individual investors from institutions such as JP Morgan, Columbia University, Cornell University, Ausum Ventures and ISKER Group. OORT has also received funding from Microsoft and Google.
OORT is headquartered in the United States, and its core members come from world-renowned institutions such as Columbia University, Qualcomm, AT&T, JP Morgan, etc.
