The benefits of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are known to all. We’ve seen more articles than one can count heap bountiful praises on their revolutionary properties and how they can completely change how businesses and entire industries function. Industries are only just realizing the true potential of both. However, not many are asking other, equally relevant questions, such as which companies are at the forefront of adopting these technologies, how they’re using them, and what impact they have had.
This article looks to answer precisely that by looking at some of the top blockchain and AI projects you must know about and how they and their customers have benefited from doing so.
What Is Blockchain And AI?
Before getting started, it is vital to get a brief primer on the technologies in question. So what are blockchain and AI? Blockchain technology came into the mainstream thanks to the success of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, thanks to the pivotal role it plays in their functioning. In its simplest form, a blockchain is a distributed ledger containing data, which is shared among different nodes on a network and can handle several tasks, such as tracking orders, payments, production, data, and more.
Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, refers to the simulation of human intelligence by computer systems. AI-powered machines can assist in problem-solving and exhibit various traits associated with humans. It can also rationalize and take a course of action that gives it the best chance of reaching a desired outcome. Additionally, artificial intelligence can learn from the data provided to it, getting exponentially smarter over time.
Several blockchain-AI projects are in the works, with several more in the pipeline. Let’s look at some of the most prominent ones.
SingularityNET is a blockchain-powered platform that aims to enable developers to create, share, and be able to monetize AI services. This includes data sets, machine learning algorithms, and AI models. An experienced team of researchers and entrepreneurs, including the CEO of AI research firm OpenCog, Ben Goertzel, founded the platform. The primary goal behind the company is to facilitate the creation of a decentralized, open AI network, enabling anyone to create or access AI services and projects. The protocol plays a critical role, helping bridge the gap between researchers and developers working with AI and businesses that require the service.
A highly performant distributed computing network, DeepBrain Chain is aiming to create the infrastructure for the 5G and AIoT era. It can be described as a low-cost, decentralized, and privacy-oriented platform utilizing blockchain technology to build the world’s most extensive, high-performance, distributed computing network based on blockchain technology. Since its creation in 2016, DeepBrain Chain has grown to amass over 200,000 users and connects to over 500 proprietary smart devices, providing developers with blockchain-powered AI and deep learning services.
Matrix AI was launched in 2019, targeting the business and tech crowd, offering them a platform combining the best artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. The protocol aims to make blockchains more intelligent, faster, and more secure and features AI-powered cybersecurity, a dynamic delegation network, adaptive blockchain parameters, and an AI-powered virtual machine to identify any loopholes to ensure security.
Numerai is a decentralized hedge fund founded in 2015, designed to source trading strategies and prediction models from users, developers, and trading companies that sign up on the platform. The idea behind the creation of Numerai is to enable users to make trades based on artificial intelligence and predictions made by a global network of data scientists utilizing blockchain technology. The platform also holds competitions where users can submit predictions, with top-performing predictions winning NMR tokens as a reward. Users can stake their NMR tokens and create new prediction models.
AIWORK is an open-source blockchain protocol that focuses on the problems of the online video ecosystem. The platform is built on a consensus network made up of human experts and AI computing resources, which help generate normalized and enhanced metadata, content titles, and tags for video content. This helps address issues such as inconsistent and poorly indexed metadata, which lead to inaccurate content discovery, hurting creators and viewers. Human experts act as a check, ensuring that the AI resources are functioning properly, learning, and improving by utilizing the right datasets.
Why Do Blockchain And AI Need Each Other?
AI needs a secure and easily accessible framework to store data and prevent any data manipulation. Blockchains provide an excellent solution to this problem, ensuring that data is verifiable. It also makes it easy to identify who is accessing data and how they use it. Blockchains also allow the creation of a transparent audit trail that can better ensure data integrity.
In Closing
Both blockchain and AI hold immense potential and could help improve the efficiency and functioning of industries and each other. Blockchain could help understand AI better, helping researchers understand how and why it reaches a particular decision. The projects covered in this small article are just the tip of the colossal number of projects at the forefront of bringing these cutting-edge technologies into the mainstream. While a considerable amount of work is still to be done, it’s only a matter of time before blockchain and AI are integrated into mainstream business processes.
