The artificial intelligence sector has exploded and seems to show no signs of slowing down. AI-related startups raised a record-breaking $11.8 billion in Q3 of 2024, accounting for 30% of all venture capital funding during the quarter.
Most companies and projects utilize centralized services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud computing power, which can be costly and prone to outages.
Decentralization and blockchain are solutions to these issues, according to Theta Labs head of strategy Wes Levitt, who told The Agenda podcast that decentralized cloud computing saves customers money and offers greater reliability and flexibility.
Levitt spoke to hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond for episode 51 of The Agenda, where he broke down how decentralization helps democratize access to computing power, why academia has become Theta Labs’ top customer, and more.
Decentralized cloud services expand access to AI
Theta Labs is the company behind Theta Network, which describes itself as a decentralized cloud for AI, media and entertainment. According to Levvit, Theta is focused on decentralizing the cloud in order “to get away from having only a few points of failure and from having near-monopolies in the case of the major cloud providers and what they can provide in pricing and other terms.”
Levvit shared that while Theta started out focused primarily on media and entertainment, it has seen a massive influx in AI-related customers since the current AI boom began. One particular sector that has found decentralized cloud computing especially useful is academia. “The strongest inroads we’ve made in the last six to 12 months has been in academia, actually,” he said.
“We caught on with KAIST, a university in Korea, and pretty quickly we were able to expand to four out of the five top Korean universities,” he explained, adding that Theta also “recently signed on University of Oregon and [is] talking now to a few of the US universities.”
Universities find the service useful in part because it opens up access to AI computing for organizations that can’t afford AWS, Levitt said. However, there are also some unique quirks within academia that make it an interesting use case, including universities’ need to rapidly scale up research efforts before conferences and then immediately scale them down.
“It’s not a model that really fits for them to say, we’re going to sign a three-year contract with heavy commitments on it. They want to have flexibility and be able to use a lot when they want, and not pay for times when they’re not.”
Theta Labs vs. Amazon Web Services
The decentralized AI niche within the blockchain space has exploded over the past year. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of AI and big data crypto projects has grown from $16.17 billion in December 2023 to peak at over $70 billion on Dec. 6, 2024.
Market capitalization of AI and big data tokens. Source: CoinMarketCap
Given this massive growth, could AWS ever disappear and be replaced by a service like Theta Network? Well, according to Levitt, that’s not really the intention of the project and there will continue to be a role for centralization.
“We don’t have stickers on our laptops that say ‘decentralize everything,’” he told The Agenda. “I think there’s always going to be some use cases [for centralization].” He gave an example of a learning model that requires a cluster of nodes focused in a specific area rather than a global network.
However, Levitt does see a future where decentralized AI could one day rival its centralized counterparts, just perhaps with different use cases.
“AWS is not going to be killed off, or the centralized cloud players aren’t going to cease to exist. There’s going to be centralized use cases. Depending on how things evolve and how a taste for decentralized AI develops, it could be just as large.”
To hear more from Levitt’s conversation with The Agenda — including how Theta Network tackles multimedia streaming, whether politicians are capable of regulating AI, and more — listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!
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This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
