There’s no doubt that one of the hottest trends in Silicon Valley recently has been artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, the AI industry has been continuously grabbing the attention of venture capitalists (VC) and other investors in the tech space.

Since 2000, there has been a 6x increase in annual investment levels by venture capital investors into US-based AI startups. At the same time, there has been a 14x increase in the number of active AI-related startups, and skills related to machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP) were the three most in-demand skills sought by employers on Monster.com.

For many people, this likely isn’t coming as a surprise. AI continues to be all over the news and in the minds of many of the world’s leading tech companies. Companies we already know like Google, Salesforce, and Pinterest are already using AI to enhance their services.

From a practical standpoint, AI has implications across various industries including IT, by detecting and deterring security intrusions, to marketing, to anticipating future customer purchases and catering offers accordingly, all the way to Wall Street with AI-enabled high-frequency trading.

Now there’s a new startup bringing another technological innovation, blockchain, to the AI industry to help expand growth further. Meet Tatau.

What is Tatau?

Tatau is a new blockchain-based computing platform that’s taking the advantages of distributed networks and bringing them to the AI industry.

The startup is creating a platform that will enable people across the world to benefit from their spare GPU-based computational power by allowing others to access it.

Tatau’s goal is to create an efficient and fair way for people to access the computational power they need for AI development (and other data processing tasks) by connecting them with others who have spare compute power not currently in use; everyone wins.

Implications for the AI Industry

While Tatau’s new platform isn’t limited to the development and growth of the AI industry, it is a perfect fit for the exploding field in the tech sector. Besides AI and machine learning skills being in high demand, so too is the computational power that can support the burgeoning tech developments.

According to OpenAI, over the past six years, there’s been an astonishing increase of 300,000x in the amount of computing power the AI world uses.

Not having access to computational power, especially affordable power, is a major barrier for new AI-related startups. Services from Google and Amazon, while effective, are often costly and not conducive to the field of “lean startups.”

That’s where Tatau comes in as the cost-effective, highly efficient option for AI developers in the industry (and any other industry that needs additional GPU power).

How Does it Work?

The concept for the platform is simple; there are two sides to the equation: suppliers and buyers.

On the supply side, individuals and businesses with spare GPU computational power join the network as providers of power. On the buy side, those who need outcomes from compute power sign up and gain access to the network.

From there, the service is run via Tatau tokens where consumers can purchase a specific outcome and the distributed network will allocate the proper amount of power to enable that outcome. All the consumer has to do is sit back and watch as the network handles all the heavy lifting, all while maintaining privacy and not handing files over to a third-party.

An integral part of the Tatau platform is that it’s blockchain-based. Unlike so many other cloud computing businesses offering consumers access to cloud computational power (for a significant price), Tatau’s blockchain foundation means that the team is building around a decentralized network that’s supplying the power.

By creating a decentralized network for the much-needed computational power, Tatau is ensuring that there’s no central authority providing power for users to consume and use. With that in mind, there’s no way for a large power provider to manipulate pricing, outcomes, or any other potential issues that may leave users with undesirable outcomes.

Instead, anyone with additional GPU-based computational power can sign up with the platform to put their spare power to work. Whether you’re looking to earn some extra income from your gaming rig when it’s not in use or you have an entire GPU mining system/data center established, everyone will have access to earn from the platform on the provider side.

On the consumer side, those seeking computational power will never need to worry about not having the hardware necessary for their projects. AI developers instead will be able to use the platform and take advantage of the distributed network of providers to access reasonably priced power and only pay for the outcomes they need.

There’s no need to purchase hardware of your own or build the processing center you need; everything is available within a click.

The Bottom Line

Tatau is taking two of the latest trends in the tech world and bringing them together to offer real-life, valuable solutions.

GPU power can be used for rendering videos, animation, and nearly any other data processing tasks. Access to affordable computational power is a crucial catalyst for other startups in not only the AI space but for a number of other businesses in the tech world.

By creating a decentralized blockchain-based platform, Tatau is facilitating growth in the tech industry by designing a platform that will meet the growing demand for computational resources that the current traditional supply can’t offer.