Jonathan Chang to Lead 0G Foundation’s Push for Real-World Decentralized AI

0G Foundation, the steward of the open-source 0G ecosystem, has appointed Dr. Jonathan Chang to its board of directors. In his new role, Dr. Chang will focus on promoting understanding and real-world adoption of decentralized artificial intelligence (DeAI), working with policymakers, institutions, and academic partners to expand access and education around AI built on open infrastructure.

A veteran technologist, entrepreneur and educator, Dr. Chang arrives with a track record that spans public sector work, fintech and cultural innovation. He served most recently as CEO of Heritage Singapore, where he helped steer immersive cultural events, including the Singapore Heritage Festival and the Singapore Night Festival.

Earlier roles include leading Southeast Asia’s micro-lending platform Fintopia Indonesia as CEO and serving as Chief Strategy Officer for Fintopia’s global operations; he has also worked with Shopify and Google for Education’s Next Billion Users initiative, among others. The Harvard and Stanford alumnus later earned a doctorate in entrepreneurship education and policy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Commenting on his appointment, Dr. Jonathan Chang said: “I’m excited to support Web3’s largest decentralized AI operating system and Layer-1 ecosystem in its mission to make AI a public good. 0G’s infinitely scalable infrastructure, composed of an L1 modular blockchain, cost-efficient storage, verifiable AI, generative agents, and a unified service marketplace, forms a thriving ecosystem that has secured over USD $350M in committed funding.”

Advancing Decentralized AI

Dr. Chang’s appointment follows 0G’s recent Aristotle Mainnet launch, a milestone that brought the protocol live with broad support from validators, DeFi protocols and developer platforms. 0G, also known as Zero Gravity Labs, has positioned itself as an AI-native, modular Layer-1 that unifies decentralized storage, compute and data availability to support verifiable, permissionless AI agents and applications. The Aristotle launch has been covered across industry outlets and was accompanied by an extensive list of launch partners.

0G’s team and community have also signaled significant financial backing and ecosystem investment to accelerate the build-out of decentralized AI infrastructure. The project has publicly discussed hundreds of millions in committed funding and an $88M ecosystem fund aimed at jumpstarting AI-powered DeFi agents and related use cases, a financial runway that Dr. Chang referenced as part of the foundation’s ability to scale education, research and developer support.

Dr. Chang added, “My mandate is to work with policymakers, governments, and institutions worldwide to advance decentralized AI, while funding education and research with top universities to prepare for a fast-changing AI world.” In his director role, Dr. Chang will lean on his entrepreneurial background and global network, including ties to incubators and startup communities, to expand opportunities for students, developers and early-stage teams building on 0G’s open-source stack.

The foundation said he will place special emphasis on AI education, research grants, and partnerships with universities to help prepare a new generation of talent for an AI-native economy that prioritizes transparency and decentralization. For 0G, bringing a figure experienced in both public-facing cultural programs and high-impact fintech initiatives signals a push to bridge technical infrastructure with policy, education and mainstream adoption.

With Aristotle live and a coalition of partners in place, 0G’s leadership changes appear aimed at converting developer momentum into real-world deployments, from autonomous, verifiable financial agents to enterprise and public-sector use cases, while keeping “AI as a public good” central to its mission.