Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and decentralised AI infrastructure firm Zero Gravity (0G) have launched a S$5 million joint research hub to advance blockchain-powered artificial intelligence technologies.
The collaboration, 0G’s first with a university, aims to develop more transparent, accessible, and accountable AI systems.
The partnership will fund multiple projects exploring decentralised AI training, blockchain-integrated model alignment, and proof-of-useful-work consensus mechanisms.
By leveraging blockchain, the initiative seeks to record and verify every stage of AI processing, unlike conventional systems that operate in closed environments.
The four-year initiative will include workshops, hackathons, scholarships, and open-source collaborations to cultivate Asia’s emerging decentralised AI community.
Early proof-of-concept results are expected within two years, with pilot applications focused on finance, healthcare, and smart infrastructure.
“Our mission is to make AI a public good,” said Michael Heinrich, CEO and Co-founder of 0G. “By partnering with NTU, we are aligning with a global leader in blockchain and computing research to move beyond centralised AI monopolies. Together, we will build an open ecosystem where developers, institutions, and communities can contribute, verify, and audit.”
NTU’s College of Computing and Data Science and its Centre in Computational Technologies for Finance (CCTF) will lead research on scalable model training, AI governance, and blockchain-enabled security frameworks, reinforcing Singapore’s position as a hub for open and decentralised AI innovation.
