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Following a $35 million pre-seed funding round last March, Zero Gravity Labs has raised $40 million in seed funding to develop a decentralized AI Operating System. The investments came mainly from crypto and Web 3.0 venture capital firms, including Hack VC, Polygon, and Delphi Digital. Zero Gravity also secured a $250 million “token purchase commitment” that will allow it to tap into liquid digital assets held on exchanges to finance the growing project. The AI Operating System gaining such attention from investors positions itself as a step toward actualizing the controversial vision of a more decentralized internet, known as Web 3.0.
“0G is building the global foundation for a better, fairer, and more open AI ecosystem, where power is distributed and innovation thrives,” Zero Gravity wrote, explaining the company mission in the preface to the project document for investors.
The company also positioned the project as a more energy-efficient, highly scalable option for producing and supporting AGI models, calling it “the fastest modular AI blockchain, providing unmatched infrastructure to scale both Web3 and AI, future-proofing the massive demands of AI infrastructure.”
This is a big promise, coming at a time when AI leaders realize the resource-intensive nature of current AI infrastructure is unsustainable and even a potential source of climate change.
Decentralized AI: What You Need to Know
So what, exactly, is the company building?
“0G (Zero Gravity) is the first decentralized AI operating system that acts as the foundational layer for decentralized AI applications and chains,” the company states in marketing materials about its decentralized AI operating system, dAIOS. “It efficiently orchestrates utilization of hardware resources such as storage and compute and software assets such as data and models to handle the scale and complexity of AI workloads.”
Unlike a centralized AI OS, which manages all data and decision-making through a single central authority, a decentralized AIOS distributes data processing across a network of nodes and typically leverages blockchain for stronger security. Developers claim that decentralization results in greater user control over data privacy, resulting in the democratization of AI, meaning it could help more people integrate AI into their business.
According to company marketing materials, Zero Gravity’s mission is clear: “To make AI a public good.” The jury is still out.