EigenLayer partners with Ritual to build AI-enabled DApps.

EigenLayer, the largest blockchain protocol on Ethereum by total value locked (TVL), has partnered with community-owned artificial intelligence (AI) network Ritual to build AI-powered decentralized applications (DApps).

According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph, the partnership aims to introduce Ethereum-level decentralized security on the Ritual network and bring AI capabilities to DApps, including smart agents, AI-powered decentralized finance (DeFI) applications, and autonomous media generation.

According to Sreeram Kannan, founder of EigenLayer, crypto-economic, AI-powered coprocessors can introduce powerful new functionality to blockchain networks while driving economic incentives. Kanan wrote:

“System is building the first crypto-economic AI coprocessor to unlock the next generation of AI-enabled smart DApps. We are excited to partner with this innovative team to bring Ethereum's security into this new space and help EigenLayer's stakeholders and operators build a decentralized, transparent AI ecosystem.

The partnership comes amid heightened interest in AI crypto solutions in a February 18 post by Vitalik Buterin, after the Ethereum co-founder, who can fix buggy code, detailed his excitement over AI-powered smart contract audits. Buterin identifies the “biggest technical risk” of the Ethereum network as bugs.

One AI application that I'm really excited about is AI-assisted routine code and bug detection.

Ethereum's biggest technical risk right now is probably bugs in the code, and anything on top of that that changes the game dramatically would be amazing.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 19, 2024

According to Ritual, its first product, Infernet, will be the first to enable smart contracts to access AI models cost-effectively and natively. The integration will leverage Ritual's infrastructure and graphics processing unit (GPU)-capable EigenLayer restakers to serve decentralized estimation, adjust and validate the on-chain economy with new Actively Validated Services (AVS).

In the year Founded in 2023, Ritial includes a network of computing devices to host, approximate and fine-tune AI models, as well as an application programming interface, or API, to ensure mathematical accuracy for computing AI model accessibility and security strategies.

According to Neeraj Pant, co-founder of Ritul, the new integration will enable more efficient, AI-enabled DApps. wrote:

“This integration extends the power of EigenLayer to AI computing, an exciting new capability for crypto developers. We are pleased to partner with the team as the first EigenLayer AI AVS to leverage Ethereum's native security and capital to enable intelligent AI-enabled dApps on the Ethereum network.

The AI-crypto sector surged following the GPU producer's fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report, which showed a 265% year-over-year increase in revenue, making Nvidia Tesla the most traded stock on Wall Street in the past. 30 trading sessions until February 22nd.

Following earnings results, the market capitalization of AI tokens increased by 11.2% in the 24 hours to 1:30 CET on February 22, to $25.4 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. AI-based crypto tokens have doubled in market value in the past month.

Related: EigenLayer Becomes 4th Largest Reworking Protocol, Closes to $7 Billion TVL