The cost of running artificial intelligence hardware has opened up an unexpected way for AI companies to cut costs while allowing individuals to monetize their home technology, according to Titan Network.
The internet infrastructure company said its software pools unused computing resources and rents it out as a “decentralized cloud” to AI companies, which pay less than they would if they bought capacity from large, centralized providers.
Driving AI is big business. The software requires massive computing resources, and the data centers use enormous amounts of power to run the machines and cool the buildings. Many bitcoins mining companies have these setups, and a number, including MARA Holding ( MARA ) and Riot Platforms ( RIOT ), are pivoting to serve the rising demand. On Monday, Alphabet ( GOOG ) said it planned to raise as much as $80 billion to spend on AI infrastructure.
“We have two of the top 10 AI companies in the world using our products to realize 75% cost savings on their infrastructure,” said Konstantin Tkachuk, founder and chief strategy officer, in an interview at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris.
The company now has 4 million connected devices worldwide and customers including Tencent, Alibaba and AI video platform Kling AI, Titan Network said. About 1 million devices are online at any given time.
Titan is not the first project to try to lower costs by pooling unused computing capacity into what is known as a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) system. Unlike platforms like Aethir and Akash Network, which target spare cycles on institutional servers, Titan says it uniquely links to private citizens.
“Titan has broken the code no one else has before, enabling everyday people to monetize the emerging AI data infrastructure industry,” River Davis, Titan’s creative director, told CoinDesk.
When large companies pay to use the network for data tasks such as web scraping, data collection or content delivery, Titan sends 80% of the company’s earnings directly to the people providing devices and internet bandwidth who have downloaded a browser plug-in or some specialized software.
The project said it has already captured about 5% of the AI data market in Asia.
