Gradient aims to bring decentralization to AI

Decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure project on Solana Gradient Network announced on June 17 the close of a $10 million seed funding round. The round was led by Pantera Capital and Multicoin Capital, with participation from HSG alongside a group of angel investors and advisors across AI, crypto, and other sectors.

The decentralized AI infrastructure firm believes decentralized intelligence requires a few foundational primitives, including compute, communication, and orchestration. According to Gradient, they form the backbone of a new machine internet, which is open, sovereign, and powered by millions. 

Gradient aims to bring decentralization to AI

Thrilled to officially announce our seed round—led by @PanteraCapital and @multicoincap, with backing from @hsgcap and an amazing crew of partners and angels.

This week, we’re also dropping two big leaps into decentralized AI: Lattica and Parallax. They’re pretty magical. You’ve… https://t.co/1sLZojuXQy

— Yuan (@yuangaoyg) June 17, 2025

Gradient argued that as AI becomes integral to society, concerns about privacy, equity, and power concentration become increasingly urgent. The firm also noted that current AI capabilities are concentrated in a few centralized platforms, posing a significant risk of privacy infringement, exclusion, and monopolistic control. 

The firm noted in a blog post that its approach protects user privacy, democratizes access to AI, and mitigates the systemic biases entrenched in centralized systems.

According to the company, its funding milestone also coincides with the introduction of its refreshed brand identity and a new guiding statement: Distributing the world’s intelligence. Gradient also promised to launch new products, publish research papers, and open contribution channels for developers, researchers, and computational contributions in the months ahead.

“We believe intelligence should be a public good, not a corporate asset. This round gives us the momentum to build infrastructure that brings decentralization to the heart of AI, empowering everyday people to participate in, govern, and benefit from the technology of the future.”

-Eric Yang, Co-founder of Gradient Network.

The fund acknowledged that the funding will accelerate the development of its decentralized AI infrastructure stack – a global, peer-powered foundation for hosting and coordinating intelligence across the open internet. The project initiated the stack with two core infrastructure protocols: Lattica, a decentralized data communication layer, and Parallax, a decentralized inference engine.

Gradient plans to release Parallax and Lattica this week

The firm revealed that Lattica is the universal peer-to-peer data communication protocol that enables fast and resilient data flow across the Internet. The protocol also supports everything from AI inference to multi-agent collaboration. Lattica also forms a permissionless network that facilitates real-time coordination between models, agents, and endpoints, powered by an extensive network of Security Nodes.

Gradient also highlighted that Parallax is the decentralized inference engine that enables large language models to be collaboratively served across diverse devices, offering scalable, cost-effective, and privacy-preserving AI solutions. The company added that the protocol will be integrated with a chatbot for use by any user.

According to the decentralized AI infrastructure project, both protocols will be released this week. The company also noted that additional protocols are underway, each designed to further Gradient’s mission of building a truly decentralized AI runtime.

Gradient acknowledged that its infrastructure stack is purpose-built to support the evolution in AI, as the industry shifts from static deployments to dynamic, multi-agent ecosystems. The firm said Lattica serves as the connective tissue for data movement, while Parallax redefines how and where inference occurs, unlocking the world’s talent computing capacity and redefining intelligence sovereignty to individuals.

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