AI+DEPIN+GAMEFI is the hottest track in this cycle, no doubt about it! MessariCrypto research report shows that any single track of AI and DEPIN will reach a market value of more than 2 trillion US dollars by 2030, with many potential opportunities! It is rare to have a project that has both AI concepts and self-developed DEPIN mining machines. Today, I will introduce AethirCloud, an AI star project whose node public sale amount exceeded 100 million US dollars last month!
With the development of global AI, games and XR, our demand for GPU computing power has soared, but due to limited hardware supply, the current GPU computing power is far from meeting the needs of AI and edge computing. As shown in the following figure
As a result, the shortage of GPUs has brought availability and high cost problems to the industry, which has also led to Nvidia's nearly 10-fold growth in two years, making it the third largest company in the U.S. stock market - a 2 trillion dollar behemoth!
Currently, we need a large number of GPUs in the following scenarios:
▹ AI Model: GPU is needed to train AI models
▹Gaming: As games become more graphic-intensive and realistic, GPU demand is high
▹XR: Cloud rendering technology provides cloud computing resources for our XR headsets (it’s impossible to wear a bulky 4090 graphics card?)
The current computing power is both expensive and insufficient. Is there any good solution to solve the above difficulties? Here it comes - @AethirCloud!
1/ Project Introduction
AethirCloud is a decentralized GPU platform that aims to provide efficient and convenient decentralized computing solutions for the AI and cloud gaming industries. The Aethir network aggregates idle GPUs from major enterprises, data centers, mining and consumers, and intelligently redistributes them to those in need.
Because data shows that many GPUs in large data centers are underutilized or idle, with an average utilization rate of only 10-15%!
2/Project Mechanism
There are five main roles in the Aethir network:
• Developers: GPU computing power demanders
•Users: suppliers of idle GPU computing power
•Container: Provides real-time remote rendering services
• Indexer: Matches users with appropriate containers
• Inspector: evaluates container performance and service quality
3/Project Mechanism
Aethir acts as an aggregator for the GPU market, facilitating connections between supply-side participants and users and organizations in compute-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence, cloud rendering, cloud gaming, and cryptocurrency mining.
By providing institutional and retail users with access to GPU computing resources, Aethir offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional Web2 peers and competitors.
4/Project Mechanism
Revenue generation within the Aethir ecosystem follows a structured model where a 20% service fee denominated in $ATH tokens is applied to payments made by clients to suppliers.
Aethir will use 50% of the total ATH token supply for hashrate mining, benefiting node operators and supply-side entities, ensuring an attractive APR yield for new entrants into the system and the overall sustainability of the ecosystem in the long term.
5/Project advantages
Compared with the Web2 model, Aethir's solution advantages:
• Resource utilization and cost efficiency: Aethir can allocate idle computing power to work, reducing the hardware cost and risk issues for new entrants
• Localized services: For example, in cloud gaming, the player region can be identified and the nearest node can be assigned to provide services.
• Reliability: Reduces the risk of single point failure and improves reliability
Cost advantage
The average cost of A100 per hour on Aethir is 0.33$/H, which is not only cheaper than Web2 cloud, but also the most affordable compared to Web3 cloud solutions, as shown in the figure below.
As both supply and demand continue to grow, Aethir will be able to have enough capacity to meet the needs of larger corporate customers.#ATHis Aethir's payment and governance token. As the network develops, I believe we will see the value flywheel in action in the near future.
6/Node status
According to the official dashboard https://dashboard.aethir.com,
• There are currently 41,756 GPU devices running in the network, 124,000 active containers, and a total of $1.81 million in service fees
• Geographically, GPU node density is higher in Europe and the eastern United States
• Nvidia H100 has 440 units, accounting for 63.2% of the computing power, followed by 3,207 4070 units, accounting for 16.17% of the computing power
7/Aethir Edge
Recently, Aethir and Qualcomm @Qualcomm have jointly released the distributed GPU cloud Depin hardware - Aethir Edge. Qualcomm's entry indicates that traditional chip giants have begun to pay attention to and lay out the potential market of AI+DEPIN.
Flywheel effect: The increase in $ATH value will attract the sale of Edge devices, which will bring considerable income to the protocol to continuously develop and promote products, and then drive the price of the currency, and so on.
8/Partners
▹Partnership with Nvidia
▹Signed a contract with the world’s largest game studio with 150 million monthly active users
▹Signed a contract with WellLink, the largest cloud gaming company with over 64 million monthly active users
▹Contract with the world’s largest telecommunications company
▹Another 10 contracts in the gaming sector are in the works
9/Scenario Application
Cloud Gaming: Centralized cloud computing networks rely on large IDC rooms to house servers. These servers are usually located in large urban centers, such as regional capitals. This means that users in remote areas will experience higher latency compared to users closer to the data center.
The future of cloud gaming will leverage distributed GPU network infrastructure to eliminate latency issues. Distributed GPU cloud computing moves physical infrastructure from the center of the network to the edge.
This is where Aethir DCI comes into play: instead of relying on centralized data centers, Aethir leverages a distributed network of GPU resources from enterprises, data centers, and consumers alike.
By leveraging GPU resources near players, Aethir can significantly reduce the latency issues that plague centralized models. Players get a seamless, responsive gaming experience.
Check out the video below to understand it better:
10/XR Cloud Rendering
With the release of Apple Vision Pro, people are paying more and more attention to XR, and XR devices are springing up like mushrooms after rain, but there is a core problem that has not been solved, graphics + game rendering. Due to the size and battery capacity of the head-mounted device, it is impossible to wear a 4090 graphics card on the head to provide services, so it is necessary to use cloud GPU rendering, and finally send the rendering results back to the XR device for users to experience games and movies.
11/Valuation forecast:
• Short term: Beat Gaimin $GMRX ($0.9B FDV)
• Long-term: Beat Render $RNDR ($4.2B FDV)
Gaimin recently launched $GMRX with a valuation of $880 million. This is a Web3 gaming infrastructure project (DePIN + Gaming)
My personal estimate is that Aethir’s launch price will be conservatively around 2.5 billion FDV!
12/Founder Background
The two founders have extensive experience in infrastructure, investment and gaming:
• Founder MRRydon has many years of experience in mining machine companies and has a deep understanding of blockchain infrastructure and computing power pain points. He also serves as a consultant for the gaming social platform NOTA Club.
• Co-founder Daniel Wang was previously a venture capital partner of ivcryptofund, chief investment officer of @w3ggofficial, and operations director of @riotgames.
13/Financing
Pre-A Round
• July 26, 2023
• Amount: US$9 million
• Valuation: $150 million
• Investors: HashKey_Capital, SanctorCapital, MeritCircle_IO, citizenxcrypto led the investment, animocabrands, hiFramework and others participated
14/ Economic Model
Token name: #ATH
Value Capture:
• The main currency for transactions within Aethir
• Governance roles
• Node Operator Staking
The token distribution is as shown in the figure below. Note: 50% of the supply is allocated to miners
Summarize:
AethirCloud is the core narrative of AI+DEPIN+GAMEFI in this cycle. It has developed its own physical hardware equipment in cooperation with Qualcomm. After going online, it is expected to start the flywheel effect and form a positive cycle. And in the downstream, there is a solid partnership. The project team has many successful experiences in AI, cloud computing, Web3 and games. I believe that after#ATHgoes online, it will become a dark horse in the AI+DEPIN track!
