- Sahara, the Los Angeles-based startup, has secured a significant milestone with a $6 million seed funding round led by Polygon Capital.
- Positioned as a decentralized AI network, Sahara, founded by USC computer science professor Sean Ren, aims to revolutionize the AI landscape.
In a pioneering move at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, Sahara, a Los Angeles-based startup founded by Sean Ren, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California (USC), has successfully raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by Polygon Capital.
Positioned as a “decentralized AI network,” Sahara is on a mission to reshape the landscape by providing a platform where workers and businesses can be duly compensated for their invaluable knowledge, expertise, and data in the era of AI.
The team behind Sahara, composed of seasoned AI researchers identified a critical gap in the existing AI model framework. While widely used AI products benefit from massive datasets and user feedback, the rewards typically flow solely to the companies that create these models. Sahara’s unique approach seeks to directly reward users, data providers, and AI trainers, creating a paradigm shift in the current AI ecosystem.
Sahara’s flagship product, Sahara Knowledge Agent (KA), is designed to be a customizable AI agent for individuals and businesses. What sets it apart is its monetization strategy – those who contribute to training the Sahara KA can directly earn compensation for their efforts.
The platform leverages blockchain networks to ensure transparent tracking of data and fair compensation, addressing concerns about privacy and security in data handling.
Shara emphasizes the growing concern of jobs being displaced due to advancements in AI, pointing out the need for a disruptive technology-driven solution. Sahara, with its bottom-up approach, can contribute significantly to mitigating this issue. The startup has garnered early adoption from industry giants like Microsoft, MIT, and USC, with two enterprise clients already utilizing the Sahara KA service.
Sahara’s strategy involves creating a new ecosystem where every participant plays a vital role. The platform envisions professional experts scaling up and monetizing their knowledge using Sahara’s agent technology, reaching a broader audience. Simultaneously, individuals without specialized knowledge can contribute to the public knowledge base, fostering a more inclusive and collaborative AI environment.
Contributors to Sahara’s ecosystem receive a share of the model they help train. If the model generates revenue in the future, these stakeholders stand to profit. Ren believes that Sahara’s innovative model can address the challenges in the current AI landscape, providing a fair and inclusive framework for everyone involved.
This funding round comes at a time when the convergence of AI and crypto is gaining momentum. Sahara’s success echoes a broader trend in the industry, with notable interest and investment in AI-related crypto tokens.
As Sahara’s products begin rolling out to the public in the coming quarters, the startup aims to usher in a new era of fairness, transparency, and shared benefits in the dynamic field of artificial intelligence.
Pioneering a Decentralized AI Network
Sahara, a groundbreaking startup at the convergence of artificial intelligence and web3 technologies, has emerged from stealth with more than 30 enterprise clients, securing $6 million in a seed funding round led by Polygon Capital.
Founded by Sean Ren, a distinguished AI researcher and USC computer science professor, Sahara is set to revolutionize the way individuals and businesses engage with AI. Positioned as the first decentralized AI network, Sahara boasts high performance, provenance, trustlessness, and privacy as its core tenets.
In response to the evolving landscape of AI, Sahara addresses the imbalance where the benefits of data and AI development come at the expense of user privacy. The onset of open-access AI models, exemplified by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has disrupted traditional employment markets, underscoring the need for a decentralized AI infrastructure. Sahara aims to disintermediate existing structures, keeping proprietary data in the hands of users and ensuring fair compensation for their contributions.
At the heart of Sahara’s vision is the Collaborative Economy, a novel economic model for the Age of AI that enables widespread participation. Sahara’s decentralized AI network facilitates secure, private exchanges of data and AI models, allowing individuals to contribute to data collection, labeling, and training efforts.
This collaborative effort generates domain knowledge models, and contributors, including knowledge developers, compute providers, and knowledge consumers, share in the provenance and ownership of this new economy.
Sahara’s infrastructure comprises two layers: the Execution Layer and the Application Layer. The Execution Layer supports the deployment of AI, emphasizing high performance, decentralization, privacy, and provenance. Meanwhile, the Application Layer, sitting atop the execution layer, houses systems like Sahara ID, Sahara Data Marketplace, and Sahara Knowledge Agents. This layered architecture ensures transparency, privacy, and proper attribution throughout the network.
The Sahara Data Marketplace, already adopted by major enterprises like MIT, Microsoft, and USC, plays a pivotal role in Sahara’s ecosystem. Users, part of Sahara’s reputation system, gain exclusive access to their Personal Knowledge Vault and Contribution Record. This decentralized marketplace facilitates data collection, labeling, and project management, providing a toolkit for users, both individuals, and businesses.
Sahara’s Knowledge Agents (KAs) are customizable AI programs built on large fundamental models, fine-tuned with proprietary data. Users can access Privacy and Provenance Toolkits and Knowledge Agent development toolkits, simplifying the creation and monetization of their KAs.
Sahara’s decentralized AI network, conceived by a team of experts from AI and web3 industries, led by Professor Sean Ren and Tyler Zhou, marks a significant step towards creating a fair, transparent, and collaborative environment in the field of artificial intelligence.
The startup’s seed funding, secured from prominent investors, positions Sahara to expand its team and further develop its portfolio of AI and blockchain-enabled products, including Sahara Vault, Sahara ID, and Sahara Network. As Sahara continues to unveil components of its decentralized AI network, it aspires to usher in a new era where every participant can reap the benefits of a collaborative AI economy.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
