The Real-World AI Foundry aims to challenge centralized AI by rewarding users for contributing live data to intelligent systems built on blockchain.
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Decentralized identity protocol IoTeX has launched the Real-World AI Foundry, a global initiative to build open, decentralized and blockchain-powered artificial intelligence.
At the R3al World AI Summit during the Singapore Token2049 conference, IoTeX unveiled the project in collaboration with a group of founding Alignment Partners, including Vodafone, the Blockchain Association, Filecoin, Theta Network, Aethir and others.
The Foundry aims to challenge traditional AI systems, which IoTeX describes as “closed-source, costly, and controlled by a few.” A spokesperson told Cointelegraph, “Real-World AI requires the opposite: open collaboration where live, trusted data from machines, people, and sensors flows into shared models.”
The spokesperson added that blockchain ensures this data is securely recorded, while crypto provides the incentives for global participation. “Users can contribute data, compute or validation and earn rewards each time an AI agent or model accesses these verified data streams,” they said.
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Real-World Models offer live AI
At the heart of the initiative are Real-World Models (RWMs), intelligent systems trained on live data from machines, sensors and human interaction. These models are built to understand cause and effect, adapt to changing environments and deliver real-time responses in high-impact sectors such as mobility, energy, healthcare and robotics.
“Rather than just distributing compute or agent hosting, the Foundry creates the first open ecosystem of RWMs, governed collectively to ensure interoperability, accountability, and alignment with human values,” the IoTeX spokesperson said.
The Foundry begins with real-world data flowing from IoTeX’s existing network of over 40 million connected devices. These devices can opt in as trusted data sources using ioID, a decentralized identity protocol that verifies authenticity without exposing personal information. Data privacy is protected using encryption and zero-knowledge proofs.
Data providers, infrastructure partners, and model builders will be rewarded based on the quality and usage of their inputs, tracked via onchain registries.
IoTeX said that governance will start with working groups established by Alignment Partners, evolving over time to incorporate token-based voting and other decentralized mechanisms, ensuring that no single entity controls the ecosystem.
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Decentralized AI gains traction
In August, Swarm Network a decentralized AI verification protocol. The protocol aims to turn offchain data into verifiable onchain information and has already powered fact-checking for over 3 million posts via Rollup News.
In April, decentralized AI startup Nous Research also in a Paradigm-led Series A round to build open-source AI models using decentralized infrastructure on Solana to rival centralized players like OpenAI.
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