30s Summary

Theta Labs’ Wes Levitt suggests decentralization and blockchain could offer a cost-effective and reliable solution to the costly and sometimes unreliable service interruptions of centralised services like Amazon Web Services (AWS). Speaking on The Agenda podcast, Levitt explained how Theta’s decentralized cloud computing was becoming especially popular with the academic world, which needs to scale up and scale down research rapidly. However, he added the goal was not to replace AWS, as centralization still had a role to play in areas where learning models needed specific locations.

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AI has taken the world by storm and shows no signs of stopping. But a lot of companies rely on big centralized services, like Amazon Web Services for cloud computing power. This can get expensive and lead to interruptions in service.

The solution could lie in decentralization and blockchain, says Wes Levitt from Theta Labs. In a talk with the guys on The Agenda podcast, he shared how decentralized cloud computing not only saves you cash, but also provides more reliable and easy-to-adapt services.

In episode 51 of The Agenda, Levitt delved deeper into how decentralization can make computing power more accessible to everyone. He also revealed that Theta Labs’ top customer is now the academic world.

What is Theta Labs you ask? It’s the company behind the Theta Network, a decentralized cloud that’s perfect for AI, media, and entertainment. Theta was established to break the dependence on a few major cloud providers and their pricing policies. In the process, they aim to eliminate points of failure, which could result in service interruptions.

Originally, Theta focused primarily on media and entertainment. But with the recent boom in AI, there’s been a surge in AI-related customers. Specifically, academics are finding decentralized cloud computing super helpful. As Wes puts it, “The strongest inroads we’ve made in the last six to twelve months has been in academia.”

Several universities, including KAIST from Korea, are using their services, and Theta expects to bring on board other US universities soon. The services are especially useful for those that can’t afford AWS. It also suits academics due to the need to scale up research efforts quickly, and then scale them down just as fast.

Nevertheless, will AWS ever disappear or be replaced by services like Theta Network? According to Levitt, that’s not the goal and there will always be a need for centralization. There will always be some cases where a learning model requires a cluster of nodes centered in a specific location. However, Levitt can see decentralized AI one day standing toe-to-toe with centralized services, but for different kinds of tasks.

Curious to know more about this fascinating world of technology? Listen to Levitt’s entire conversation on The Agenda, available on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.