AWS, Google Cloud, UC Berkeley, Quicknode and TogetherAI among 40+ new ecosystem partners
Data Services Platform goes public 5/27 to support distributed data collection and annotation at scale
LOS ANGELES, May 19, 2025 (Bitwire) — Sahara AI, the first full-stack, AI-native blockchain platform where anyone on any chain can create, contribute to and monetize AI, today launched SIWA, its public testnet for decentralized AI development. SIWA serves as the first public gateway to the Sahara Blockchain, a foundational infrastructure layer purpose-built to enable the registration, licensing, and monetization of AI assets - such as datasets and models - through transparent, verifiable on-chain protocols. The SIWA testnet will allow developers and contributors to explore and validate these core protocols ahead of Mainnet.
During its private testnet, Sahara AI saw strong early traction with over 3.2 million total accounts, 1.4 million daily active accounts, and 200,000 users engaging with the Data Services Platform. Phase 1 of the SIWA testnet focuses on decentralized data ownership, giving contributors the ability to register and tokenize their datasets with verifiable on-chain records. This means these foundational assets, which are often exploited in centralized systems without credit or compensation, can now be transparently tracked and monetized.
"AI currently runs on data from billions of people, but most contributors aren't credited, compensated, or even aware their data is being used,” said Sean Ren, Co-founder and CEO of Sahara AI. “Sahara AI isn't just another blockchain - it's a call to action. We’re already generating revenue through our Data Services Platform, and this value will directly accrue to our testnet users. With SIWA, we're supporting every developer and every chain that shares our vision of letting all AI contributors own their part of it."
Sahara AI's protocol roadmap includes three additional phases before mainnet: licensing, revenue distribution, and royalty vaults that turn attribution into revenue; permissionless testnet with open-source protocols; and pipeline registration, provenance tracking, and proof-of-contribution for automated revenue sharing.
Alongside current partners and clients such as Microsoft, Amazon, Snap, MIT, MyShell, USC, and UCLA, the SIWA testnet launches with over 40 new ecosystem partners and clients across AI, Web3, cloud infrastructure, and research organizations, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, UC Berkeley, Together AI, and Quicknode.
“Sahara AI is opening a new chapter in AI development by making the process more open, equitable, and accessible,” said Vipul Ved Prakash, Co-founder and CEO of Together AI. “Scalable compute is essential to realizing that vision, and Together AI is proud to help power their developer platform to ensure anyone, anywhere can access the resources they need to train and run meaningful AI workloads.”
Together with the launch of SIWA, Sahara AI also begins a phased public rollout of its flagship applications, providing chain‑agnostic tools, infrastructure, and economic systems for builders and contributors across Web2 and Web3: the AI Developer Platform, AI Marketplace, and the Data Services Platform (DSP).
On May 27, Sahara AI will begin public access to DSP, a first-of-its-kind service that leverages distributed contributors to perform data collection and annotation at scale. Users will be able to register datasets on-chain and mint ownership tokens, with additional public features rolling out in phases. Decentralized peer review, incentive mechanisms, and quality assurance processes ensure data integrity and reliability, with season one resulting in a 92% accuracy rate from internal QA with 289,000 approved datapoints. The close of its second season saw more than 2.55 million approved datapoints with a 95% accuracy rate after internal QA.
The Sahara AI Developer Platform and AI Marketplace form a full-stack suite of tools and services that fill a major gap in the blockchain ecosystem. Until now, developers and public chains have lacked the infrastructure needed to support AI development in an open, secure, and collaborative way. Running on Sahara’s testnet, the AI Developer Platform delivers end‑to‑end tooling for data, model, agent, and compute workflows, while the AI Marketplace adds on‑chain ownership and revenue‑sharing channels to monetize those assets across both Web2 and Web3. Access to the AI Marketplace will follow shortly.
Sahara AI was built on the belief that the people powering AI, whether by contributing data, building models, or deploying applications, should be the main beneficiaries of it. With SIWA, that future is finally taking shape. To be among the first to test Sahara AI’s decentralized AI infrastructure, register datasets and mint ownership tokens, please visit Sahara Labs Portal.
About Sahara AI
Sahara AI is the first full-stack, AI-native blockchain platform where anyone can create, contribute to and monetize AI development, making the future of AI more accessible, equitable and rewarding for all. Built on the Sahara blockchain, Sahara AI’s comprehensive platform consists of a data services platform for data labeling and refinement, an AI Developer Platform for model creation, deployment, and tooling, and a decentralized AI Marketplace where you can buy and sell datasets, models, agents, and compute. Sahara AI is already trusted by leading tech innovators and research institutions including Microsoft, Amazon, MIT and Motherson Group. For more information or to join the waitlist for whitelists or the upcoming mainnet, please visit SaharaLabs.AI.