The AI-Powered DePIN Model for Decentralized Computing: Interview with Al Morris, Founder Koii

Artificial Intelligence is not merely transforming industries but reconstituting the fundamental infrastructure that underpins our digital realm.

Grandview Research indicates that AI is poised to transform multiple industries, with a projected annual growth rate of 36.6% from 2023 to 2030, achieving a whopping $1,811.75 billion. However, as AI applications become more intricate and data-driven, the need for scalable, efficient, and accessible computing solutions has surged in 2024.

Koii stands out as a pioneer in this revolution, offering a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) that employs community-driven computing with a strong emphasis on AI capabilities.

To learn more about this innovative platform, I have the honor of speaking with Al Morris, the founder of Koii and an early researcher among Ethereum's cofounders. We’ll examine the story behind this platform, its novel approach to decentralized computing, and potential developments that could revolutionize the AI and decentralized landscape.

Let’s dive in!

Ade: Can you introduce yourself and tell us about the origins of Koii? As a research analyst under one of the early Ethereum founders, what inspired you to establish this platform?

Al Morris: In 2015, I got a glimpse of the future with AI while I was working as an industrial consultant, automating factories. I saw the writing on the wall for white-collar work, too, and wanted to find a way to include everyone in the future, so I became very interested in distributed networks like Ethereum. I started attending and helping organize meetups in Chicago, and quickly, I was recruited to help launch the Blockchain Institute, one of the first research schools for decentralization. After going deep on many of the leading protocols, in 2020, I noticed a massive gap in the market- no one was onboarding consumer devices directly.

In 2017 and on I had watched how over-reliance on custom hardware was putting a lot of sell pressure on new token launches, and with a focus on making the industry more economically self-sustaining, I proposed Koii as an alternative solution.

In 2021 we launched the first prototype of the network, which I built from a cabin in the woods in Canada during COVID, and we quickly assembled a team of dedicated people who wanted to use this network to begin archiving the internet, a task we decided on as a good test for our new compute network.

Since then, things have grown remarkably, and what was once an R&D project has become a global network of over 90,000 community members, now boasting advanced technology for launching new crypto-backed communities.

Ade: Koii has established itself as a platform centered around artificial intelligence. Could you explain how Koii's decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) model promotes AI development and the benefits it offers compared to conventional cloud services?

Al Morris: The biggest moat that exists in the AI industry is hardware. The leaders in the space (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) have built their products by first crawling the web and then running vast models on the enormous computing capacity. Once the models are trained, hosting them for user queries requires yet again more computing resources. This is why Sam Altman has famously said that we need new Nuclear Reactors and $$$ billions of dollars of GPUs to get the job done.

Koii is the first network that crowdsourced consumer devices, providing a massive underutilized resource that can provide for this enormous hardware need without the major electrical load overhead. Koii is distributed across thousands of devices in the homes of our community, and grows every time a new person installs the app.

Ade: Koii possesses a remarkable network of nodes and computational resources. Can you provide an analysis of the current state of the Koii network regarding nodes, bandwidth, computational capacity, and storage?

Al Morris: Every few minutes, someone tells a friend about Koii. It's been that way most of this year, which means we have a rapid and consistent flow of new devices joining the network. Most have fiber optic bandwidth, and they're often quite high-capacity devices.

One major advantage of Koii is the self sovereignty of the nodes, which allows them to also participate as data aggregators across social networks and other systems that a node operator might have access to, so it's about a lot more than just the compute capacity.

Ade: Koii provides a range of tools. Can you describe the functions of Koii Data Services and Orca in the artificial intelligence development process?

Al Morris: The big advantage of Koii is to incorporate many devices as one large cloud, a service we offer as an autoscaling kubernetes environment.

The standard Orca environment on the node provides a docker runtime and allows the use of custom tokens for rewards and penalties, helping ensure that compute providers are accountable.

Ade: Koii has collaborated with multiple companies to establish the Koii Compute Alliance. What benefits does this alliance provide for AI developers?

Al Morris: One of the best things about distributed computing is that you don't need to pay up front, you can issue your own token as rewards and people will trade their capacity for a slice of the future pie.

The bad thing about this, however, is that it can sometimes mean there isn't a lot of supply for new projects, who might not have the trust of the node operators. In these cases, node operators typically

Ade: The Koiisador Program was launched on September 24th. What benefits and opportunities are available to participants?

Al Morris: Koii Ambassadors, known as Koiisadors, form the elite core of the Koii community, combining top tech talent with strategic initiative. Participants start as Trial Koiisadors, contributing for 8 weeks before advancing to full or Senior Koiisador roles. They collaborate closely with the Koii team, earn KOII tokens based on their contributions, and lead key initiatives while driving growth. Additional benefits include exclusive access to the core team, special perks on Telegram and Discord, and unique Koiisador merchandise.

Ade: What future advancements or milestones can we anticipate from Koii, specifically concerning AI capabilities?

Al Morris: Anyone, anywhere in the world should have access to AI. It's a necessity in 2024, and it will be required for survival in 2030.

The compute resources required can be expensive, so we hope to offer revenue sharing to enable individuals easy access to these networks.

The key is to build together, sharing pooled resources, and sharing profits as well. Tokens are the key to all of this.

By the end of 2024, anyone in the world will be able to launch token-backed AI on Koii, allowing them to tap into thousands of devices, and automate revenue sharing via token distributions.

This future is now, and anyone can help.

The upcoming release of our EZWay web app will allow anyone, no matter their technical abilities, to launch tokens, build products, and capture markers using distributed computing.