NEAR Protocol Unveils Plans to Become 'the Best Ecosystem' for AI Research and Applications

NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin has unveiled plans to make it “the best ecosystem for the next generation of AI research and applications”.

NEAR Protocol, a layer 1 blockchain, is venturing into the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) with the goal of fostering user-owned AI and becoming a hub for the next generation of AI research and applications.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, outlined the vision in a recent blog post. NEAR, initially founded as an AI company, later shifted towards blockchain and payments solutions. Now, the chain is seeking to combine the two technologies.

“We started NEAR as an AI company because we believe that user-owned AI is the next frontier for humanity,” wrote Polosukhin. “We do not want to live in a world where a few mega-corporations control the most powerful human resource: intelligence.”

According to the co-founder, the goal is to create a decentralized and collaborative ecosystem for AI research and applications, as opposed to the centralized and closed industry that currently dominates Web2.

“We want to enable a new generation of AI researchers and builders to create user-owned AI applications at scale, and we believe that NEAR can provide the best ecosystem for this,” added Polosukhin.

The NEAR Foundation, together with its research and development unit led by Polosukhin and Alex Skidanov, another co-founder, will provide investment and incubation services for AI-related research and applications.

“The NEAR Foundation will provide funding, mentorship, and technical support to promising projects at the intersection of AI and blockchain,” stated the blog post.

The foundation’s equity-free accelerator, Horizon, is currently accepting applications for its next cohort, which will begin in September 2024. The accelerator is designed to support early-stage startups building on NEAR.

“We are excited to see what the community can build together and to support the next generation of AI applications on NEAR,” concluded the post.

The NEAR token ($NEAR) showed a slight response to the announcement, rising 3.5% and trading at $3.94 at the time of writing. The token has seen a significant rally over the past year, surging over 400%.