Coinbase, NEAR, Others Form Alliance to Develop Open AI Services

A group of big-name crypto and blockchain firms have joined forces to deliver open artificial intelligence (AI) services using combined infrastructure.

The Open Agents Alliance (OAA) consists of NEAR AI, the payments and AI arms of crypto exchange Coinbase and an array of other blockchain and AI projects.

The aim of the alliance is to “ensure secure, open source, economical, and fair AI access,” according to an emailed announcement on Thursday.

The participating organizations will offer combined infrastructure, such as AI agent frameworks, cloud hosting and on/off-ramps to fiat and crypto, to allow developers to build and deploy AI tools.

Crypto and blockchain projects have been attempting to capture the zeitgeist of the proliferation of AI in the last couple of years through initiatives that could introduce greater transparency and fairness through decentralization.