Written by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily
The tumultuous yet magnificent year of 2024 for cryptocurrency is about to end, and 2025 is already beckoning us. Many crypto institutions, including Coinbase, a16z, VanEck, and Messari, are betting that AI will become one of next year’s 'main themes.'
Apart from the AI Agent and AI Meme coins leading market trends in the second half of the year, a series of high-quality AI projects have gradually attracted significant market attention. Among them, Sahara AI, which previously raised a total of $43 million and recently launched the first phase of its testnet, has become a recent market focus. According to the latest official news, the 2024-2025 roadmap was released today, and the mainnet will be launched in Q3 2025.
Odaily Planet Daily will systematically introduce this project in this article to facilitate readers' understanding of this star project positioned as a 'decentralized AI blockchain platform' dedicated to building an AI Chain.
Sahara Project Introduction: Raised $43 million, Star Team + Renowned Capital
According to previous introductions, Sahara AI is a decentralized artificial intelligence network that allows everyone to leverage their knowledge capital to uncover monetization and automation opportunities through artificial intelligence. The initially launched basic products include Sahara Knowledge Agent (KA) and Sahara Data.
In August this year, Sahara AI announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, with participation from Samsung, Matrix Partners, Thai Commercial Bank, dao 5, Alumni Ventures, Geekcartel, Nomad Capital, Mirana Ventures, and others. The new funds will be used to further expand the global team, enhance the performance of its AI blockchain, and accelerate the development of its developer ecosystem. It is reported that this is Sahara AI's Series A financing, with a total amount of approximately $43 million. At that time, due to the project's early stage, we also briefly introduced its potential interaction methods in the article (Hand-in-hand with you to interact with Binance Labs five major projects invested in August).
The Team Behind Sahara: The Industry's Top Talent from Crypto and AI Circles
According to official website information, the team behind Sahara AI includes USC AI Professor and Viterbi Center Chairman Sean Ren (@xiangrenNLP, who previously worked at Ai 2, Snapchat, Stanford University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), former Binance Labs Investment Director Tyler Zhou (@tz_sahara), and several key members with backgrounds from prestigious universities responsible for product, operations, ecological construction, and community work.
Sahara AI Team List
After the completion of financing in August, Binance co-founder He Yi directly expressed her expectations and optimism for the future development of Sahara. She mentioned: 'Looking forward to Sahara AI as a pioneer, building a decentralized AI blockchain platform, reshaping the future of AI, making it more transparent, secure, and accessible to all.'
It is worth mentioning that Sahara AI held an AMA with technical personnel from Anthropic, the company behind Claude, on the 20th of this month, discussing topics related to the outlook for AI development in 2025. The content was more focused on technical discussions and industry research, with relatively light crypto attributes, highlighting a marketing route that differs from other DeAI projects, giving people the impression that 'we are seriously working on AI + Blockchain, not just telling stories.' Previously, the project also announced that it had achieved SOC 2 compliance (SOC 2 Type 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification), emphasizing the importance of enhancing the security, availability, and confidentiality of AI development.
Recent AMA of Sahara AI
Entering Sahara AI: Building a Human-AI Collaborative Network
Based on the comprehensive information from Sahara AI's official white paper and documents, the project's main focus is on the following aspects -
Self-positioning: A decentralized blockchain platform for an open, fair, and collaborative AI economy;
Core Concept: 'Artificial Intelligence Assets,' i.e., ownership and management agreements for private AI resources (such as personal data and proprietary models);
Target Audience: AI developers, data providers, and other stakeholders, including end users and enterprise users, as well as AI asset traders;
Service Content: From data collection and labeling to model training and service, AI agent creation and deployment, multi-agent communication, AI asset trading, and AI resource crowdsourcing.
Sahara On-chain User Life Journey
At this stage, Sahara AI's main focus is on the 'three elements of AI (computing power, algorithms, data),' specifically 'data.' This involves collecting, refining, and labeling datasets to complete the foundational task of enhancing AI model performance. Subsequently, through the continuous improvement and development of developer tools and the data service platform, Sahara AI will launch AI assets and an AI marketplace to facilitate the formation of an 'AI economic closed loop' for developers, users, and enterprises.
Project Progress: The first phase of the testnet has been launched, and the mainnet will go live in Q3 2025.
On December 19, Sahara AI officially announced that the first phase of the testnet is officially online, with 10,000 participants selected from nearly 800,000 applicants. The main tasks include participating in the construction of the data service platform through sign-ins, data labeling, and other activities. The official explanation states that this move is to encourage user participation in knowledge contribution and early rewards.
This afternoon, Sahara AI officially announced the project roadmap for 2024-2025, which includes the following key information:
Q4 2024: Launch the first phase of the testnet through the data service platform, which is currently online; the second phase will begin in Q1 2025.
Q1 2025: Launch AI marketplace, introduce limited access to developer tools, and expand the data service platform.
Q2 2025: Launch Sahara Studio, a comprehensive tool to simplify AI development, including model training toolkits, model deployment toolkits, and model orchestration toolkits.
Q3 2025: The Sahara Chain mainnet will go live, providing the on-chain infrastructure needed to support large-scale decentralized AI.
Sahara AI Latest Roadmap
Regarding the specific product roadmap of Sahara AI, the official website also has detailed planning statements, as shown in the image below:
Sahara Product Planning Chart
According to its official website information, the Sahara AI ecosystem currently includes 200,000 AI trainers, over 35 enterprise clients, and more than 3 million data labels.
Current Data on Official Website
Latest Interactive Tutorial: Testnet Interaction + Testnet Phase Two Application
Currently, early participants selected for the first phase of the Sahara AI testnet can interact through the following methods to earn corresponding points rewards:
Log in to http://app.saharalabs.ai to create a profile;
Log in to https://faucet.saharaa.info to receive SAH test tokens;
Complete various tasks on the data service dashboard to earn corresponding Sahara Points (SP) or Experience Points (EXP).
For more detailed information, you can check the task requirements at: https://docs.saharalabs.ai/data-services-page.
It is worth mentioning that due to the quality emphasis on data labeling issues, users who answer randomly and lead to multiple task failures may face restrictions on answering questions or even disqualification from the testnet. Please pay attention.
Data Service Page Display
Also attached is the application URL for the second phase of the testnet Waitlist: https://hi.saharalabs.ai/get-started.
Conclusion: Can Sahara AI build an 'AI oasis' on the Sahara Desert?
Lastly, Sahara AI has repeatedly mentioned its commitment to building an AI Chain centered on an 'AI economy.' In an era where countless crypto projects view AI as a meme label, this undoubtedly reflects a considerable courage and exploratory spirit. Whether it can build an 'AI oasis' for AI users and developers on the currently desolate crypto soil is a question Sahara AI may answer in the future.