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

Theta Labs has signed a multi-year agreement with Seoul Women’s University to provide its AI research lab access to Theta EdgeCloud’s decentralized GPU computing power.

As stated in a press release shared with crypto.news, the partnership will allow the AI to Everything lab at SWU to leverage Theta EdgeCloud’s decentralized network of GPUs, reducing costs and boosting computational power for their AI research across healthcare, bioinformatics, and finance. 

Built on top of the Theta Network (THETA), Theta EdgeCloud is a DePIN-powered hybrid cloud-edge computing platform. It utilizes over 30,000 distributed nodes to offer scalable, cost-effective GPU computing resources for AI, media, and entertainment applications, enabling users to tap into a global network of decentralized computing power. Last year, the project secured a $1 million investment from VC firm DWF Labs.

According to Theta Labs, the partnership with SWU’s AIX labs exemplifies how decentralized physical infrastructure networks solve real-world problems.

Reducing costs in AI research

Faced with the rising costs of GPUs for AI research, universities find traditional methods, like maintaining in-house GPU clusters or using expensive cloud services, increasingly unsustainable. Theta Labs CEO Mitch Liu notes that Theta EdgeCloud offers a solution by reducing these costs by “50-70%” and increasing research productivity 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, who will lead the collaboration, stated that Theta’s decentralized GPU network would bridge the gap between “academic ambitions and practical constraints,” with the collaboration representing a “significant step in democratizing AI research.”

“By tapping into this shared resource, our students and academic team are able to focus on pushing the boundaries of AI applications without restraint.”

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

DePIN sector seeing growth

The multi-year agreement with SWU builds on Theta Labs’ previous partnerships with Daejon-based KAIST University, which uses Theta EdgeCloud for computer vision and natural language processing, and Seoul-based Yonsei University for AI model training. This new collaboration with SWU further strengthens Theta EdgeCloud’s growing footprint in academia.

Meanwhile, the DePIN sector has rapidly gained traction in the cryptos space, with Messari forecasting its market value to reach $3.5 trillion by 2028. With its ability to remove intermediaries and give users more power, DePIN is emerging as one of the most promising technologies.

As reported by crypto.news, early-stage DePIN projects have attracted significant venture capital funding this year, raising over $246 million across 70 deals by August 2024. The growth marked a 296% surge year-over-year.