Seoul Women’s University taps Theta EdgeCloud to power AI research with DePIN

As a seasoned analyst with years of experience in the tech and crypto industries, I find this partnership between Theta Labs and Seoul Women’s University to be a game-changer. Having witnessed the escalating costs associated with AI research, particularly the exorbitant prices of GPUs, I am thrilled to see a solution that promises to reduce these expenses by up to 70%.


Under a long-term partnership, Theta Labs is granting the AI Research Lab at Seoul Women’s University access to the distributed computing power of Theta EdgeCloud’s GPUs for artificial intelligence studies.

According to a press release distributed to crypto.news, this collaboration enables the AI Lab at Southwest University (SWU) to utilize Theta EdgeCloud’s decentralized network of GPUs, thereby lowering expenses and enhancing their AI research capabilities in healthcare, bioinformatics, and finance by increasing computational power.

Based upon the Theta Network (THETA), Theta EdgeCloud is an advanced platform that combines Decentralized Proof of Stake (DePIN) with cloud-edge computing. This system leverages more than 30,000 distributed nodes to provide a flexible and affordable GPU computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence, media, and entertainment projects. By doing so, it allows users to access a globally dispersed network of decentralized computational power. Last year, the project received a $1 million investment from venture capital firm DWF Labs.

The collaboration between Theta Labs and SWU’s AIX labs demonstrates the practical application of decentralized networks for resolving tangible real-life issues.

Reducing costs in AI research

Confronted with escalating prices for GPUs in AI studies, universities are discovering that age-old approaches such as running in-house GPU clusters or relying on costly cloud services are becoming financially unviable. The CEO of Theta Labs, Mitch Liu, highlights Theta EdgeCloud as a viable alternative, claiming it can cut costs by “up to 70%” and boost research efficiency fivefold.

“The message from universities is unanimous: GPU access for AI research is a major financial and logistical hurdle […] By lowering these barriers and accelerating setup times, we’re supercharging innovation across the entire AI ecosystem, benefiting everyone in the field,” Liu told crypto.news.

Professor Minseo Park, taking charge of the collaboration, expressed that Theta’s decentralized GPU network would connect “scholarly aspirations and real-world limitations,” positioning this collaboration as an important stride towards making Artificial Intelligence (AI) research more accessible to all.

“Leveraging this common pool enables our students and scholars to explore the limits of AI innovations freely, without being held back.”

Minseo Park, assistant professor at SWU’s Department of AI.

DePIN sector seeing growth

This extended deal with SWU expands upon Theta Labs’ past collaborations with KAIST University in Daejon, where Theta EdgeCloud is utilized for computer vision and natural language processing tasks, as well as Yonsei University in Seoul for AI model training. By teaming up with SWU, Theta EdgeCloud’s presence within academic institutions becomes even more robust.

As a crypto investor, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to the Decentralized Pin (DePIN) sector. This space has seen rapid growth in the cryptosphere, with predictions from Messari suggesting it could be worth an impressive $3.5 trillion by 2028. What makes DePIN so appealing is its potential to eliminate intermediaries and empower users, making it a technology that truly promises great things for the future.

According to an update from crypto.news, DePIN’s early-stage projects witnessed substantial investments from venture capitalists in the current year. By August 2024, these projects collectively raised more than $246 million through approximately 70 separate deals. This growth represented a remarkable increase of 296% compared to the previous year.

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2024-09-06 13:08