NEAR Announces Ambitious AI Model: Price Surges Following Major Reveal

At the Redacted conference in Bangkok, Near Protocol unveiled plans to build the world’s largest open-source AI model, propelling NEAR’s price up by 10%. With a staggering 1.4 trillion parameters, this upcoming model aims to be 3.5 times larger than Meta’s current Llama model. Set to be developed under the Near AI Research initiative, this project will leverage contributions from thousands of participants in a competitive, community-driven research and development process. Starting on November 10, contributors can begin training a smaller 500 million-parameter model as part of the project’s early phase.

NEAR’s AI Model Development Strategy

The model will progress through seven stages, gradually increasing in complexity, with only top-performing contributors advancing to each subsequent level. Built for privacy and revenue generation, the models will use Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to securely reward contributors and fund updates. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin announced that NEAR’s AI model development, estimated at around $160 million, will be funded through altcoin sales, remarking at the conference, “It’s a substantial amount, but within the realm of achievable funding in the crypto world.”

Polosukhin added, “Once the model is deployed, token holders will receive dividends from all inference processes using the model. This business model paves the way to generate returns, fund development, and reinvest for future models.”

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NEAR’s Price Spike Amid Major AI Announcement

Following this announcement, NEAR saw a 10% price surge, climbing from $4.27 to $4.88. This momentum reflects market optimism surrounding Near Protocol’s ambitious plans. Alex Skidanov, Near AI’s lead and a former contributor to OpenAI, noted the substantial computational demands required for a model of this scale. He explained that “tens of thousands of GPUs” would be necessary, ideally through decentralized networks, though current distributed training methods need ultra-fast connections, which don’t yet exist on a wide scale. Emerging research from Deep Mind, however, suggests that such decentralized computing might become feasible.

Near Protocol’s venture into AI with a model of this magnitude represents a new frontier, merging blockchain with advanced AI capabilities. The Bit Journal will continue to monitor NEAR’s development as this groundbreaking project progresses.

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