David vs. Goliath: How Web3 Teams Plan to Beat Big Tech in the AI Race

Building AI systems is far more expensive and complex than it seems, Tsao noted. According to her, today’s systems require multiple components: a data layer, compute, GPUs, and AI agents.

As soon as a project starts to scale, initial costs skyrocket, he says. That’s why most AI agents never reach the mass market — they simply don’t have the right monetization model, the Aethir CEO pointed out.

As already mentioned, Big Tech companies are prepared to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure. Moreover, they have other advantages over players in the Web3 segment.

It is worth noting that the decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) sector, where Filecoin is one of the pioneers, has already reached a market cap of more than $40 billion, according to Messari. According to analysts at the World Economic Forum, this figure could rise to $3.5 trillion by 2028.

In addition to cost, a critically important factor in working with AI and data is their accuracy and quality.

This is where the advantage of a decentralized approach can come into play. In traditional cloud systems, users often do not have access to a verified source of information or cannot verify the authenticity and immutability of data.

This becomes critically important in the era of deepfakes and fabricated information. Today, when there is too much data on the internet, people often take everything at face value — and that is why verification becomes a necessity.

The ability to prove the origin of data is a fundamental advantage of Web3: blockchain allows not only to store information, but also to ensure its authenticity.

Another advantage of decentralization is the focus on narrow specialization, whereas large technology companies try to solve “everything for everyone.” Slack draws an analogy with medicine — generalized AI works like therapists, but there are also narrow-profile specialists. In his opinion, AI development will follow this path:

New technologies are particularly active in the world of finance. 

AI agents on the blockchain have already reached impressive scales. According to VanEck estimates, the potential of this segment will lead to the emergence of more than a million new agents by 2025.

Data storage remains a key aspect of this process. Tsao explains:

The AI revolution is just beginning. Web3 companies are betting on decentralization and specialization, contrasting this with centralized monopolies. In addition, blockchain provides transparency of data origin. 

History shows that in the battle between Davids and Goliaths, it is often the fast and focused newcomers who win, finding moves that the big players don’t even think of.