0G Labs Raises $35 Million for AI-Focused Blockchain Infrastructure

According to Blockworks, 0G Labs has secured $35 million in funding for the development of infrastructure designed to support AI and other compute-intensive applications running on-chain. The investment round included participation from Hack VC, Stanford Builders Fund, Delphi Digital, and GSR, among others. The platform aims to establish itself as a leading layer for data availability (DA), joining a field of existing and upcoming DA providers such as Celestia, EigenLayer, NEAR, and Polygon. 0G, short for Zero Gravity, plans to scale by separating data storage from data publishing. Data availability refers to the ability of nodes in a blockchain network to access and verify transaction data. For optimistic rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism, nodes need to access all the chain's transactions to run proofs and eliminate fraudulent transactions. However, publishing large amounts of data is costly, with a Blockworks Research report estimating that DA costs account for 90% of transaction costs on some rollups. This expense is further increased by many rollups using Ethereum for DA, as Ethereum blockspace is costly. As a result, startups like 0G have emerged to offer more affordable DA layers, which are particularly appealing to high-throughput sectors such as gaming, on-chain social media, or AI. Michael Heinrich, founder of 0G, revealed that the protocol is collaborating with several AI projects, including ORA and Modulus Labs. 0G is designed with two lanes: one for data publishing and one for data storage. The platform's data publishing lane utilizes data availability sampling, a method also employed by DA layers Celestia and Polygon Avail. Ethereum's planned upgrade to full danksharding will also shift the network to start using DA sampling. In the storage lane, data sent to 0G is erasure coded, meaning some data is duplicated to ensure block data can always be recovered even if data is lost or withheld. Celestia, Polygon Avail, and EigenDA either currently use or plan to use erasure coding for their data availability systems. 0G then sends chunks of erasure coded data to a decentralized storage system secured by rewarding data storers. This system is intended to be horizontally scalable, meaning that each node has to download less data as more nodes are added to the system. In general, DA providers are based on modularity, which involves breaking complex systems like blockchains into smaller, interchangeable parts. DA layers are used by modular, as opposed to monolithic, blockchain systems.