The encrypted world never lacks new narratives, but those that are both sexy and practical are few and far between.
For example, with the rise of the current AI super narrative, although cloud computing has become the core productivity of the future digital economy, traditional Web2 giants have monopolized high-performance GPU and computing resources. This leaves little bargaining power for projects in the middle and tail end, facing a situation where more extensive verifiable computing applications are also at a loss.
Therefore, in the wave of AI+Crypto, concepts like Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) have gradually gained prominence as one of the best solutions for verifiable computing and handling confidential AI data.
This article will focus on the encryption veteran Marlin, positioned as a “verifiable cloud computing infrastructure,” to explore how it aligns with the current AI craze and whether it can bring new variables to the “AI+Crypto” track.
In the second half of the AI game, can we do without “verifiable cloud computing”?
It is well known that in addition to the rapid expansion of large-scale AI models, numerous AI scenes in their early stages of explosion, such as healthcare, education, and autonomous driving, all require massive computations. However, the data from these specific scenes, such as medical care, energy systems, bandwidth networks, and connected vehicles, are crucial data for economic and even life safety. This data not only directly affects the security of personal confidential data but also requires broader data sharing and collaboration to drive the development of the field.
At the same time, the traditional cloud service market is dominated by Internet giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP, holding more than sixty percent of the cloud computing market share, creating a clear seller’s market.
One of the most significant problems with this market structure is the reliance on centralized cloud servers, meaning that developers/project owners’ trust in the cloud services they use is highly tied to the reputation of one or more giants, essentially surrendering data autonomy and security to Web2 giants.
Therefore, it is vital for the development of the AI cloud computing market in the second half to have a comprehensive set of blockchain development tools targeting Web3 to provide decentralized, verifiable, low-latency, and low-cost solutions. The necessity of decentralized verifiable cloud computing services is gradually emerging, filling the gap in this specific direction.
In this context, decentralized verifiable cloud computing services are essential. This solution allows for verifying the correctness of computation results without revealing underlying data, ensuring data privacy and preventing data leaks.
Marlin’s goal is to become a verifiable L0 in the AI world, providing services for various narratives such as AI, MEV, Oracle, ZK, and TEE. By leveraging encryption technology to execute computations, Marlin enables data verification without disclosing sensitive information, aligning perfectly with Web3 applications.
Marlin aims to serve as a fundamental infrastructure for AI verifiable computing, integrating into existing products to provide verifiable cloud computing services to AI computing needs. Marlin’s core features, based on TEE high-performance nodes, enhance network security and provide services that can be easily accessed by project owners.
Marlin’s network architecture consists of Oyster, Kalypso, and the Marlin Relay network, ensuring computational correctness and security through TEE and ZKP, and incentivizing resource contribution without compromising security.
In conclusion, Marlin’s role as a verifiable computing middleware empowers AI applications with verifiable computing attributes. This infrastructure facilitates decentralized cloud computing services, reducing costs and enhancing resource utilization for AI projects, thus laying the foundation for diverse application scenarios.
Marlin’s potential in the AI+Web3 field lies in its ability to be a crucial infrastructure component that brings verifiable computing to the AI and Web3 world. This opens up a vast imagination space for AI projects to develop native verifiable computing products and services, making Marlin a key player in the AI+Web3 era.
