Sophon and Aethir have announced the start of a strategic partnership that will connect the 800,000 robust members of Aethir’s decentralized computing community with the more than 3 million people who have registered for Sophon’s pre-launch campaigns.
As part of the partnership, Aethir will debut on Sophon shortly after the mainnet launch, which is scheduled for the third quarter of 2024. The projects will also perform a node swap between the two communities, as both recently completed a highly successful node sale to the public have completed.
Cloud gaming and AI/ML training are two GPU-intensive applications powered by Aethir, a distributed computing network. The infrastructure for checkers and rewards, as well as the computing providers themselves, make up the two main parts of the Aethir network. The first, launched on Sophon, will mainly manage the verification and rewards process. Additionally, Aethir is about to launch a permissionless computing platform that will be available on Sophon.
In addition, Sophon Aethir will operate checker nodes to ensure the resilience and reliability of the network. To ensure that both communities have a stake in the partnership’s success, Sophon and Aethir’s node operators will receive a portion of each partner’s tokens as part of the node swap and greater collaboration.
Daan stated:
“The merger of Aethir’s robust decentralized computing infrastructure with Sophon’s advanced ZK Stack technology ushers in a new era for high-performance computing. This collaboration will help make high-performance GPU computing more accessible and reliable for AI, ML, and cloud gaming applications. By leveraging Sophon’s advanced blockchain capabilities, we can drive greater innovation and expand the reach of decentralized computing networks.”
Seb, the co-founder of Sophon, stated:
“We are excited to partner with Aethir to represent the very best of what Web3 has to offer today. Sophon and Aethir’s long-term goals made this a natural partnership that will deliver value to both ecosystem communities, which we are incredibly excited about.”
Daniel Wang, CEO of Aethir, stated:
“Decentralized computing networks and DePIN are some of the great applications of blockchain technology, and the high performance and plug-and-play nature of our ZK chain makes it the perfect home for hosting critical components of a distributed computing network. ”
ZKsync is the driving force behind Sophon, a modular blockchain based on the ZK Stack architecture. Started by former ZKsync executives and backed by a variety of funding sources including Spartan, SevenX, OKX Ventures, Huobi Ventures and others, it will be one of the first examples of the comprehensive and modular ZK Stack, allowing organizations to start highly secure and scalable EVM-based chains. Sophon will benefit from low latency without sacrificing security as it is built on the same technology stack as ZKsync Era, as the majority of competing L2 solutions are still highly centralized in many crucial functions.