The Arweave Computing Network AO mainnet will launch on February 8, 2025. The Arweave Computing Network AO is a decentralized parallel computing environment that allows any number of processes to run in parallel simultaneously and coordinates them through an open messaging layer. Here are some key features and components of AO:
1. Technical Principles: AO is based on actor-oriented computing, designed as an environment capable of hosting any number of parallel processes, with coordination between processes through an open messaging layer. Key features of AO include the ability for any number of processes to run in parallel and the verifiability and reproducibility of computation results, achieving minimal trust.
2. Basic Composition: The AO system includes two types of basic units: processes (Process) and messages (Message), as well as three types of basic units: scheduling units (SU), computing units (CU), and messenger units (MU). These units are responsible for information distribution, computation, and routing.
3. Consensus Mechanism: The AO computer achieves consensus through the holographic state storage of message logs in Arweave, requiring consensus only on the order and storage of interaction logs in Arweave, without needing to reach consensus on state.
4. Functional Separation: AR and AO each have their roles; AO does not address verification issues but is responsible for message transmission, ordering, and state computation, primarily handling computation problems; Arweave is responsible for security and verifiability issues, reaching consensus on data ordering, and ensuring permanent immutable decentralized storage.
5. Parallel Computing Architecture: AO employs a message-passing architecture, achieving horizontal scalability, which allows its parallel scalability to reach any scale.
6. Modular Architecture: The modularity of AO is reflected in the separation of CU, SU, and MU, allowing users to freely choose suitable sorters, message relayers, and computing units, with even system-level virtual machines being replaceable, thus supporting the introduction of processes into AO across various smart contract systems.
7. Relationship between AO and Arweave: AO is essentially an open and flexible data protocol for storing computation logs on the Arweave protocol. It is not a permanent ledger nor a network itself. AO, as a decentralized computing environment, utilizes Arweave's scalable on-chain storage as its permanent host for storing data during execution.
8. Goals of AO: The core goal of the AO computer is to achieve unrestricted, trustworthy, parallel, and unified computing services. It creates a new foundational environment for DApp design, combining the trustless characteristics of smart contracts with the advantages of traditional computing environments like Amazon EC2.
The launch of AO marks Arweave's transformation from a single decentralized storage platform to a scalable network that supports smart contracts and various blockchain protocols, aimed at supporting a wide range of applications including social media and AI applications.