In the world of encryption, there is never a shortage of new narratives, but those that are both sexy and practical are few and far between.
For instance, with the rise of the AI super narrative in this round, although cloud computing has become the core productivity of the future digital economy, traditional Web2 giants have monopolized high-performance GPUs and computing resources, leaving little bargaining power and autonomy for projects in the long tail. Additionally, a wider range of verifiable computing applications also face the dilemma of insufficient resources.
Therefore, under the tide of AI+Crypto, concepts like Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) have gradually gained prominence as one of the best solutions for verifiable computing and AI confidential data processing.
This article will turn its focus to Marlin, a veteran in the field of “verifiable cloud computing infrastructure,” and delve into DeAI projects that intersect multiple narratives such as AI, MEV, Oracle, ZK, and TEE, to explore how they align with the current AI craze and whether they can bring new variables to the “AI+Crypto” track.
In the second half of AI, is “verifiable cloud computing” indispensable?
It is well known that besides the rapid expansion of large models in AI, many AI scenarios in their early stages of explosion, such as healthcare, education, and autonomous driving, require massive calculations. However, for these specific scenarios, users’ healthcare, education, and autonomous driving information are critical data that affect economic and even life safety. It is essential to ensure the security of personal confidential data in various dimensions like healthcare, energy systems, bandwidth networks, connected vehicles, and to promote track development through broader data sharing and collaboration.
However, at the same time, the traditional cloud service market is dominated by Internet giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP, which together hold more than sixty percent of the cloud computing market share, creating a clear seller’s market.
One of the most significant problems with this market structure is the reliance on centralized cloud servers, meaning that developers/project parties are highly tied to the reputation of one or more giants when using cloud services. This essentially relinquishes data autonomy and security to Web2 giants.
As a result, in recent years, cloud service providers have experienced frequent data leaks, causing severe losses to individuals and institutions. Therefore, regardless of how developers/project parties view the core issue of “decentralization” in the Crypto world, it is far better to prevent wrongdoing through mechanism design than to trust that giants will not do harm.
Against this backdrop, if we carefully analyze the direction of AI cloud computing, there is still an ecological gap between the underlying mature cloud computing service solutions of Web2 and AI. The transformation of confidential computing technology faces high costs, making it challenging to deploy programs quickly and securely in the industry without particularly good solutions. This limitation hinders the development momentum necessary to meet the series of application functions required by AI+Web3.
Therefore, in simple terms, the development of the second half of the AI cloud computing market urgently needs a comprehensive set of blockchain development tools aimed at Web3 to provide decentralized, verifiable, low-latency, low-cost solutions. From this perspective, the necessity of decentralized verifiable cloud computing services gradually comes to the fore, conveniently filling the gap in this specific direction:
In this context, the necessity of decentralized verifiable cloud computing services gradually emerges. As a solution that uses encryption technology to perform calculations, it allows the correctness of computation results to be verified without revealing underlying data, ensuring that private information is not disclosed and critical data is not compromised.
All in all, Marlin is poised to become a verifiable L0 in the AI world. By focusing on “verifiable cloud computing infrastructure,” Marlin aims to integrate verifiable cloud computing services into existing products for those with AI computing needs, offering a solution for AI confidential data processing and verifiable computations.
To summarize, Marlin’s potential in the AI+Web3 space lies in serving as a foundational infrastructure at the L0 level, empowering AI projects with native verifiable computing product services. As an indispensable core component in the AI+Web3 era, Marlin is set to revolutionize the landscape of verifiable computing, providing a crucial foundation for diverse application scenarios.