Author: Kava Chinese Official Source: Medium The release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022 officially marked the beginning of the modern AI era. We introduced this defining moment in the first article in this series on the next great industrial revolution. Since then, AI's popularity and investment have continued to rise. Recently, we explored the massive amount of money Wall Street and venture capitalists are pouring into the field—over $100 billion in 2024 alone, representing 46.4% of the $209 billion raised that year. This massive investment is triggering a fundamental shift in the power structure of American tech companies. Cloud service providers, which emerged in the Web2 era, consolidated their dominance through aggressive M&A, and maintained a tight grip on user data, are now facing disruption as they struggle to meet the growing demand for AI computing. In stark contrast, decentralized infrastructure, with its unique advantages, not only meets this new wave of demand but also provides a more compelling and efficient technical architecture. This article first explores how shifting demand and consumer preferences are reshaping the power dynamics within traditional cloud service providers. It then analyzes several projects currently operating in the United States, including Bittensor, Kava AI, Render Network, and Ocean Protocol, to highlight the key projects driving this transformation. After highlighting these leading projects, the article concludes with predictions for the future development of major technology companies. The surge in demand for high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI is placing significant pressure on the supply of traditional cloud service providers, leading to inefficiencies and bottlenecks that hinder AI innovation. Leading cloud service providers—AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform—all admit that their current capacity is 2.5 times less than the current demand in the AI ​​market, and this gap is expected to widen. AI projects can attempt to build their own physical infrastructure, training models in private on-site data centers. However, this requires significant initial capital investment, additional technical expertise, and high ongoing maintenance costs, making it prohibitively expensive and inefficient for most projects. Consequently, most projects are forced to rely heavily on cloud services from large tech companies. This reliance on large tech companies' infrastructure—and their inability to meet new demands—highlights the drawbacks of concentrating critical infrastructure in the hands of a few tech giants. Growing dissatisfaction with large tech companies, coupled with GPU supply shortages and the US government's current pro-cryptocurrency legislation, has created an opportunity for the rise of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) in the US. These emerging DePINs leverage the world's underutilized network of GPUs and AI infrastructure to gain a competitive advantage. They differentiate themselves through dynamic pricing models and achieve significant cost savings compared to traditional cloud providers. Consumer Preferences: Large tech companies’ monopoly over user data, coupled with limited compensation mechanisms, has fueled negative public sentiment. This distrust is exacerbated by user concerns – nearly 68% of consumers globally express concerns about online privacy. Many are reluctant to see large tech companies continue to dominate in the AI ​​era and are instead seeking to support alternative solutions. The fusion of blockchain technology and AI positions the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) project as an ideal alternative to centralized data control. Blockchain's immutable ledger enables direct user ownership of data through cryptographic privacy, while enhanced AI protocols introduce a higher level of security by detecting anomalies and eliminating single points of failure.

American projects driving change

Fortunately, there are already some American encrypted decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) and decentralized AI (DeAI) projects that, with the help of AI-enhanced blockchain technology, demonstrate the advantages of more efficient alternatives to large technology companies. Bittensor: An Open, Decentralized Marketplace for Machine Learning. Launched a year before the AI ​​craze swept the mainstream market, Bittensor is a pioneer in decentralized AI infrastructure platforms in the United States. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company currently has a market capitalization of over $3.6 billion. The platform operates on the Bittensor Network—an open marketplace for trading AI models and computing resources that rewards users with TAO tokens based on the quality, practicality, and usage of their contributions. Its success demonstrates that decentralized applications can provide lower-cost, more accessible AI and computing infrastructure, thereby challenging the monopoly of large technology companies in the supply of AI resources. Kava AI: The Evolution of Decentralized AI Kava AI leverages its experience in providing decentralized financial infrastructure to build the world's largest decentralized AI model. This transition to decentralized AI (DeAI) enables Kava AI to address the critical challenge of transparency in AI decision-making. By recording AI decision transactions on the blockchain, Kava AI brings unprecedented transparency and verifiability to AI systems. This open model for AI model development stands in stark contrast to large, centralized models that continue to collect and exploit user data with minimal compensation. Render Network: GPU Infrastructure Render Network is a decentralized US-based GPU infrastructure network designed specifically to meet the computing demands of modern AI. The Render project launched in 2009, the RENDER token was issued in 2017, and the full network launched in 2020. The platform initially aimed to allocate idle GPU resources for rendering in virtual reality (VR) and three-dimensional (3D) content creation, but by late 2022, it had established itself as a leading provider of GPUs for AI protocols. Render Network demonstrates a fairer and more democratic model where anyone can profit from their excess GPU resources. Render offers a clear alternative to the barriers to entry created by big tech companies, which enable them to artificially restrict supply, raise prices, and force customers into long-term vendor lock-in contracts.

Ocean Protocol: A Marketplace for High-Quality Data

Ocean Protocol is an open-source protocol that serves as the foundational layer for decentralized AI systems and data infrastructure. The protocol creates an open marketplace where users can earn revenue from their data. Built on the Ethereum network, it provides a marketplace that allows businesses and individuals to permissionlessly sell their datasets. This novel model allows users to maintain control over their data, effectively addressing a key concern regarding large tech companies. Furthermore, Ocean Protocol creates economic incentives for data sharing while maintaining privacy, enabling smaller AI developers to compete with large tech companies that have historically monopolized access to large datasets. The Future of Decentralized AI in the US While these US decentralized projects demonstrate significant potential to disrupt the existing landscape of large tech companies, it remains to be seen how these tech giants respond. In June 2025, Meta acquired Scale AI, a startup specializing in high-quality training data and annotation services, demonstrating that large tech companies are acutely aware of the stakes. This acquisition highlights the aggressive consolidation of AI infrastructure by incumbents to solidify their industry dominance. Nevertheless, decentralized infrastructure and the integration of blockchain technology with AI are offering a viable and more accessible alternative. Decentralized AI enables more efficient scaling and provides dynamic computing responsiveness superior to traditional technologies. The United States is supporting these innovative projects through deep capital markets and pro-cryptocurrency legislation. As U.S. crypto projects continue to mature and demonstrate enterprise-level capabilities, they are expected to capture a significant market share in the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure sector and potentially reshape the entire AI industry around the principles of decentralization, transparency, and universal access. In the coming years, AI infrastructure development will redefine the direction of the next generation of technological innovation.