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This is the 84th edition of The Web3 + AI Daily - your definitive guide to the intersection of blockchain and AI. The news about the Agentic Payments Alliance got me thinking about the other alliances, associations, and industry groups formed within Web3 + AI, and the specific goals each one is pursuing. So today, I’m examining the first batch of Web3 + AI strategic alliances.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
The Collective Power of Web3 + AI
Over the summer of 2025, a wave of alliances and interest groups emerged at the intersection of blockchain and AI, each with its own focus and mission. For a relatively small and niche sector like Web3 + AI, this was a natural step: by organizing collectively, companies could strengthen the sector’s voice, establish its presence, and gain greater leverage within the broader technology landscape.
Now, a year later, it’s worth taking stock of what these groups have been doing, and, more importantly, what they’ve actually achieved so far.
AI Unbundled: A Web3 AI Industry Alliance
Back in April 2025, Aethir introduced AI Unbundled: A Web3 AI Industry Alliance to support the Web3 AI evolution. It was launched by a roster of 13 members, which later expanded to 22 members in total.
It comprises 0G, Biconomy, ChainGPT, GEODNET, IoTeX, Oasis Labs, FLock.io, OORT | The Data Cloud for Decentralized AI, DeAgentAI, Polyhedra, iExec, AlphaNeural AI, ar.io, Chainlink Labs, Plume, Cere Network, Irys, Theta Network, Impossible Cloud Network, NEO blockchain, and Hologram Labs. Their mission is to equip aspiring AI builders with end-to-end decentralized infrastructure:
Aethir’s GPU solutions, 0G’s decentralized OS for AI, and FLock.io’s full-stack AI training platform will allow developers to easily build new products and use cases. IoTeX and GEODNET will empower builders with DePIN AI blockchain infrastructure and Satellite Reference Stations for real-time data flows. Biconomy’s plug-and-play Web3 APIs will offer unprecedented reliability and scalability to AI projects. At the same time, ChainGPT’s AI-powered tools, designed specifically for Web3, will help streamline complex development processes.
AI Unbundled was not created as a lobbying body. Rather, its objective is to bring together infrastructure providers, blockchain networks, data/storage projects and other ecosystem players so that AI builders could access a broader stack of resources through one alliance. Moreover, at its founding the alliance also offered AI projects joint grants of between $10K and $100K.
Unfortunately, the alliance doesn't have a dedicated website, but just one page on Aethir's one. It doesn't provide any information about its current activity, the grants it distributed, or the startups it launched. I reached out to the Aethir team to ask for an update, and will report here if they get back to me.
Sentient Data Consortium
In March 2025, Sentient Labs pioneered the Sentient Data Consortium - an association of decentralized data companies, aimed at ensuring that “AI stays community-built, community-owned, and community-aligned.”
The consortium has a mandate to guaratee that AI is trained on “diverse, community-driven data sources, not just corporate-controlled datasets.” Its founding members included Vana, The Graph, Space and Time, Masa (now Gopher AI), OpenLedger, Fraction AI, Kite, Raiinmaker, Dria, QNA3 (inactive), OpenMind, Pear AI, Irys, Chainbase, Mizu (inactive), DeFusion AI (inactive), Sapien, and Entrova.
LabelLedger (inactive), TURF Network, PrismaX, Cambrian Network, DMind, DappLooker AI | Agent Intelligence, Covalent, Cookie DAO, and Perle also subsequently joined.
As you can see, the Data Consortium grew rapidly through several waves of expansion, attracting a diverse range of decentralized data providers, (although, at the time of writing, some of them appear to have gone out of business). While Sentient has clearly benefited from access to high-quality, specialized data spanning crypto intelligence, DeFi, robotics, and more, there is little evidence that the consortium was intended to serve as an advocacy body.
Instead, its focus appears to have been primarily technological: aggregating complementary data sources to strengthen Sentient’s ecosystem and help build an alternative to centralized AI, rather than collectively promoting user-owned data or representing the interests of decentralized data providers more broadly.
Of course, I’m speculating here, but I couldn’t find any information about the consortium beyond the three tweets announcing new members and spanning March - July 2025. I asked the Sentient team for clarification and will keep you updated.
Sentient Verifiable Compute Consortium
In May 2025, Sentient initiated another industry group - the Sentient Verifiable Compute Consortium. This time, the goal was to bring AI out of the black box it usually runs in, and instead offer customers:
Provable model outputs
Private inference & access control
Composable, verifiable compute infrastructure
Secret management and on-chain delegation
The consortium welcomed Phala, Lit Protocol, Nillion, and Lagrange Labs as founding members.
The information about this association is even scarcer. The four founding partners are high-quality infrastructure companies, and their capabilities fit together logically. However, there's been no evidence of consortium-wide product or research releases.
This was Part I from a series of publications exploring the Web3 + AI industry groups and alliances. Part II is coming next week, so stay tuned!
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