ETHDenver is over, but the lessons it dispensed and the introductions it facilitated will not be forgotten. The opportunity to meet and mingle with so many from the Livepeer community, as well as from the greater web3 ecosystem, was refreshing – as was the chance to talk tech with some of the brightest minds operating at the cutting edge of web3 and AI.

Four days of keynotes, panel discussions, and networking provided several insights. Chief among them was the broad consensus that the fate of AI and decentralized networks is intertwined. This rapidly evolving vertical, where web3 and neural networks collide, is one of today’s most exciting and innovative tech sectors.

It was also apparent that with the rise of AI-generated video content — not to mention the ever-rising amount of streamed video online — the need for Livepeer’s decentralized networks of GPUs efficient, cost-effective, and open video streaming platform is more pressing than ever.

Livepeer’s Doug Petkanics and Shannon Wells both dove into the nuances of this revolution at this year’s event. Here’s how.

Spotlight on Livepeer

Our community knows that Livepeer is committed to staying true to its core mission of building the world’s open video infrastructure — a commitment that extends to AI accessibility and enabling the creation of open AI infrastructures and video AI computation power to prevent monopoly players from dominating this emerging market.

That’s why Doug’s keynote, “The DePIN Advantage: Supercharging Crypto's Role in AI,” centered on AI’s red-hot opportunity in a thawing crypto winter — and how decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) are poised to be this year’s breakout success.

In his talk, Doug unpacked DePIN’s potential amidst the AI boom, where web3’s open-source tech and distributed computing can deliver real-world impact beyond Big Tech’s proprietary software and centralized clouds. Watch Doug’s session in full here.

Meanwhile, Shannon's workshop, entitled “Decentralized AI: Video Infrastructure, Tools, and Applications,” addressed the boom in AI innovation from another perspective: the necessity of open and ethical development practices, the importance of cost-efficient infrastructure, and the empowering role of blockchain in AI through decentralized computing and innovative reward systems.

As Shannon explained, there are concerns about potential challenges faced by smaller companies in accessing compute capacity for AI, as well as the formation of a “walled garden” ecosystem. However, Livepeer’s decentralized network offers the potential to offer more accessible, affordable, and high-performance AI processing power.

Shannon said: “Livepeer has added flexibility to support different models trained on pre-existing datasets…Our goal is to prove that the Livepeer network can eventually be used by developers to deploy any model on the network.” Check out Shannon’s presentation here.

Builder Bounty Inspires Big Ideas

Elsewhere at ETHDenver, Livepeer posted a $25K prize pool for developers seeking to create applications that utilize Livepeer’s AI capabilities, and the devs didn’t disappoint. The caliber of submissions received for the AI Video Integrations Bounty was impressive.

Stay tuned and monitor Livepeer’s social media to find out the winners!

DePIN, AI & GPUs

The lingua franca of decentralized physical infrastructure networks – yes, DePIN – was in plentiful supply. Not just at ETHDenver, but also in the week’s rich offering of other events.

Not content with delivering her keynote, Shannon also appeared on not one, but two panels to discuss the subject further: first, at ETHDenver’s Spork Castle in “From Bits to Atoms: How DePIN Is Making Crypto Real” with DIMO’s Rob Solomon and 6th Man Ventures’ Mustafa Qazi (watch the full video), and second in “Computing the Singularity: DePIN and GPU Bottleneck” at Convergence’s side event.

Open Sourced Intelligence, meanwhile, was the topic for Livepeer founder Doug Petkanics on a lively panel discussion at ETHGLOBAL PRAGMA that featured NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin, Ritual Co-founder Niraj Pant and Global Coin Research founder Joyce Yang. 24 hours later, Doug was up again at DCG’s Lunch & Learn event to discuss “Demystifying Decentralized AI, Data, and Physical Infrastructure” alongside Space and Time founder Scott Dykstra and Bittensor’s Ala Shaabana.

Finally, DePIN and DeAI were on the menu once again at the Denver Art Museum on March 1st, where Doug joined members of Tableland, Ansa Research, Veramo Labs, and Protocol Labs to explore how DeAI and DePIN are providing open access to AI infrastructure.

Onto the Next One

The prevailing sentiment within the Livepeer community at ETHDenver was notably optimistic. After a week of extensive talks, workshops, and panel discussions, we felt a heightened sense of enthusiasm and anticipation. The focus on web3, decentralized video, and AI has left a lasting impression, underlining our collective outlook geared towards embracing and leveraging innovation for future initiatives and developments within the community.

With so much confidence flowing through the entire web3 industry, and decentralized infrastructure development gathering pace, ETHDenver couldn’t have arrived at a better time. So much has happened over the last 12 months – particularly in the field of AI – that one week couldn’t possibly have contained it all.

So now it’s back to building. But the conversation continues on Livepeer’s socials. Get involved and join us on this journey to scale the world’s first open video network.