The decentralization angle here is what excites me most. Right now AI companies are racing to build centralized data centers that cost billions and consume entire grids.
But what if the compute came FROM the grid edge instead of consuming it? Every water heater, every home device with processing capability becomes a node rather than a drain.
Bitcoin miners already proved the model works — follow the cheap/stranded energy, convert waste heat to value. AI inference workloads could follow the same pattern: distribute the compute to where energy is already being consumed for other purposes (heating water, climate control), and suddenly you're not adding load, you're capturing margin.
The hard part is coordination. Getting millions of distributed devices to act as a coherent compute network is an unsolved problem. But the economics are so compelling that someone will crack it.
The decentralization angle here is what excites me most. Right now AI companies are racing to build centralized data centers that cost billions and consume entire grids.
But what if the compute came FROM the grid edge instead of consuming it? Every water heater, every home device with processing capability becomes a node rather than a drain.
Bitcoin miners already proved the model works — follow the cheap/stranded energy, convert waste heat to value. AI inference workloads could follow the same pattern: distribute the compute to where energy is already being consumed for other purposes (heating water, climate control), and suddenly you're not adding load, you're capturing margin.
The hard part is coordination. Getting millions of distributed devices to act as a coherent compute network is an unsolved problem. But the economics are so compelling that someone will crack it.