Why is the new star in the AI track, Sahara AI, attracting so much attention as it launches its Testnet?

Recently, the star project in the AI field, Sahara AI, officially launched the first phase of its Testnet - the data service platform. Over 10,000 early contributors were strictly selected from 780,000 applicants, making the whitelist competition exceptionally fierce. What has attracted the attention of numerous well-known investment institutions to Sahara AI, resulting in financing as high as $43 million? Let's explore the uniqueness of Sahara AI together.

The Mission of Sahara AI

Sahara AI is a decentralized AI blockchain platform that aims to revolutionize the development, deployment, and monetization of AI assets (including AI models, datasets, smart agents, etc.) through innovative AI asset concepts and proprietary infrastructure. Whether professional developers, entrepreneurs, or ordinary AI enthusiasts, everyone can easily build or deploy personalized AI products on the Sahara AI platform and earn real income by contributing data, developing models, or deploying AI assets.

This unique design not only lowers the entry barrier for AI but also builds a more democratized and fair AI collaborative ecosystem, allowing each participant to share in the industry's growth dividends.

In short, Sahara AI is an AI public chain focused on "AI development" and "AI data/model assetization," allowing users to collaboratively create infrastructure through data labeling and gain real value from the very beginning.

The Importance of Sahara AI

Traditionally, opportunities to influence AI development were limited to developers. However, with Sahara AI, anyone can participate and directly impact the AI ecosystem, helping to build a new generation of AI that is fairer and more user-centric.

With the advancement of AI technology, the complexity of its data requirements is also increasing. Tasks that once involved marking objects or simple classification have evolved into nuanced processes, such as sentiment annotation, multi-modal data alignment, and organizing datasets in specific domains. These tasks require careful consideration, expertise, and precision to ensure high-quality results. The Sahara AI Data Service Platform aims to address these challenges by leveraging a globally diverse and decentralized labeling machine. Users contribute knowledge, helping to lay the foundation for a fairer, user-centric AI ecosystem, while also being rewarded.

Developers can access trusted models and datasets through Sahara AI, annotate and optimize datasets to accelerate development speed and ensure high-quality data input.

Team Background

The core team of Sahara AI consists of seasoned experts from the AI and Web3 industries, with past experiences that include several renowned universities and tech companies. The team members integrate their rich cross-disciplinary experience into the design and development of Sahara AI, laying a solid technical and strategic foundation for the platform.

The founding team includes:

• Sean Ren: Professor of AI at the University of Southern California and Chair of the Viterbi Center, with a strong academic background and experience in AI technology research.
• Tyler Zhou: Former Investment Director of a well-known trading platform, with profound understanding and insights into the blockchain ecosystem and Web3 investments.

Partners

Sahara AI has not only received support from institutional investors but also guidance and backing from leading figures in the AI industry and academia, including Laksh Vaaman Sehgal, Vice Chairman of Motherson Group, Rohan Taori, Scientist at Anthropic, Teknium, Co-founder of Nous Research, Vipul Prakash, CEO of Together AI, and Elvis Zhang, a founding member of a well-known AI company.

Financing Situation

This year, we secured $43 million in financing led by several well-known investment institutions, including corporate investments from Samsung and Thailand's Kasikorn Bank.

Participation Method

Sahara is currently issuing Sahara Points (SP) rewards for Testnet tasks to users. The mainnet is expected to go live in the third quarter of 2025, so there is plenty of time to accumulate points.

The steps to participate include: joining the waiting list, selecting tasks, applying for tasks, contributing knowledge, earning Sahara points, and achievements. The platform offers various types of tasks covering multiple fields including creator economy, gaming, science, trade, and more.

Users need to be aware that the platform has strict requirements for data quality. Certain tasks require a qualification exam, and the exam eligibility for each task is only granted once. Currently, more than 35 technology innovation companies and research institutions are using Sahara AI, including several well-known tech companies and research institutions.

Summary

The value of AI data annotation lies in providing precise training data, which is key to enhancing the accuracy and performance of artificial intelligence models. Accurate annotation helps the models better understand and process information, thereby performing better in real-world applications. This is precisely the core of Sahara AI. The project team stated that with the continuous optimization of Sahara AI, more products for public participation will be launched in the future.

Sahara AI, as a valuable and community-friendly AI project, is undoubtedly worth paying attention to. It not only provides new possibilities for AI development but also creates opportunities for ordinary users to participate in the AI ecosystem. As the project continues to develop, we can expect to see more innovations and breakthroughs.