Filecoin Tops Crypto AI Development Rankings as 2026 Data Narrative Accelerates

• Santiment’s data shows Filecoin leading AI and big data dev activity at 348.03, ahead of Chainlink and ICP.
• Developer work stayed concentrated in infrastructure networks, as projects like Bittensor, The Graph, Injective, and Recall fell behind.

Santiment reported that Filecoin topped crypto AI and big data development rankings as artificial intelligence becomes more intertwined with blockchain technology. The company used filtered GitHub events to measure active work across public repositories.

Filecoin recorded a development score of 348.03, leading the sector by a wide margin. Chainlink ranked second at 211.03, and Internet Computer (ICP) ranked third at 200.03. 

Crypto AI Development Rankings | Source: Santiment

Santiment described Filecoin’s work as tied to decentralized storage and data availability tooling. Chainlink’s ranking placed it among the most actively built data delivery layers for smart contracts. ICP remained among the leaders for on-chain compute and related developer toolchains.

NEAR Protocol, whose 2026 roadmap update we recently covered, followed with a development score of 70.23. NEAR trades near $1.69, up 3.6%, for a market capitalization of around $2.18 billion. Oasis Network scored 34.93, as Livepeer trailed with a score of 32.5.

Filecoin Battles ICP, NEAR Protocol for AI Supremacy 

While Filecoin has failed to keep pace with some fast movers like Solana and Cardano, it has started the year on an uptrend. Trading at $1.51, it has gained 3.6% in the past day, bringing its weekly gains to 19.2%. 

According to Coinglass, Filecoin futures open interest shot up 29% to about $200.39 million. Reports linked the move to Filecoin’s planned Onchain Cloud launch, expected later this month. The initiative, as covered by CNF, targets programmable storage and retrieval. The planned expansion aims to support broader DePIN and AI data workflows overall.

Moreover, CNF previously reported that Filecoin’s USDFC adoption rose as storage providers used it for payments and settlements across the network. DeFi users are also increasingly using USDFC for liquidity and yield within the Filecoin ecosystem.

Targeting the AI market could propel Filecoin into one of the industry’s heavyweights. However, it faces stiff competition from networks like ICP, Bittensor, and Artificial Superintelligene Alliance (formerly Fetch.ai and SingularityNET). As CNF reported on Saturday, ICP founder Dominic Williams stated that 2026 will be the year the network focuses on hosting AI applications on a ‘single trust layer.’

NEAR Protocol unveiled a similar 2026 roadmap, with NEAR AI Cloud now one of its key products. The target is to allow users to own their AI interactions as data ownership becomes a global concern in the wake of widespread AI usage.