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The NEAR Foundation has launched the alpha version of NEAR AI and has announced a partnership with cross-chain wallet firm, Infinex.
Announced at [REDACTED] in Bangkok on Sunday, NEAR's new AI tool features two key components that are designed to make user-owned AI more accessible and beneficial. The first allows NEAR users to engage with an AI assistant that prioritizes user ownership and privacy. Users' goals are supported by the tool through preserving user-specific memory and acting autonomously across Web2 and Web3. The open-sourced assistant can also assist with tasks including blockchain transactions, e-commerce, data analysis, and custom frontend creation, NEAR said.
Second, its AI Research Hub encourages community members to build and monetize frontier AI research by providing research resources for developing foundational AI models.
To facilitate secure AI development, NEAR’s core protocol will soon support nodes equipped with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and GPUs, enhancing secure model training, inference, and monetization, according to a statement.
NEAR also introduced NEAR Intents as part of its core protocol, which are a new type of blockchain transaction that lets users and AI agents interact across Web2 and Web3. This feature further supports NEAR’s chain abstraction, allowing a seamless interface between AI and blockchain, empowering NEAR’s position as a leading AI and Web3 platform.
Introducing the platform at [REDACTED], Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and CEO of Near Foundation, said, “We wanted to bring to users a technology that benefits them and helps them retain their control over their data. We’re bringing an AI assistant into the picture: it’s going to know what you want, and it’ll help you interact with new developments in computing and services. NEAR is going to be the home of consumer crypto, helping users take the first steps in both web2 and web3 worlds, spanning blockchain transactions to assisting with online shopping.”
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Infinex Partnership
NEAR's partnership with Infinex, a decentralized exchange platform under development by the DeFi project Synthetix, enables the latter to expand its functionality across a wider array of blockchains, including legacy chains like Bitcoin and Litecoin through NEAR Chain Signatures.
The NEAR Chain Signatures protocol allows Infinex users to sign transactions on multiple blockchains from a single account, simplifying the user experience by removing the need to manage native gas tokens for each chain.
This is achieved through a Multichain Gas Relayer, which effectively eliminates the requirement to hold tokens native to other chains to perform transactions. The chain signatures are compatible with Cosmos, Dogecoin, Bitcoin, and XRP Ledger, among others.
“Infinex is a monolithic platform that will accelerate the extinction of centralized exchanges,” said Kain Warwick, founder of Infinex. “To do this, we’re thrilled to partner with NEAR to connect legacy chains like Litecoin and XRP to DeFi.”
Infinex CTO Jed said, “This is a major unlock for us. Our smart contract architecture is key to how we combine groundbreaking UX with onchain transparency and funds recovery. With NEAR, we can bring the same functionality to chains like Bitcoin, offering users genuine self-custody of native assets without compromise.”
In October, Infinex raised $67.7 million via an NFT sale, which saw participation from various venture capitalists, angel investors, and community members, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Wintermute Ventures, Framework Ventures and Solana Ventures, and angel investors like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov.
The [REDACTED] conference is bringing together the brightest minds in technology for a transformative three-day event from November 9-11, 2024, at the Avani Riverside hotel, Bangkok. This gathering takes place during Thailand Blockchain Week, just ahead of Devcon, and promises to be a pivotal moment for the convergence of artificial intelligence and Web3.
Blockhead is a media partner for [REDACTED].
