The Cryptonomist interviewed decentralized AI expert Janet Adams is COO of SingularityNET.
1\. The ASI Alliance just unveiled ASI Cloud. Could you explain what it is, how it differentiates from centralized AI cloud offerings, and what problems it solves for businesses and developers?
ASI Cloud is a permissionless AI cloud, not another walled garden. It gives developers instant, wallet-based access to enterprise-grade GPUs and open-source models at transparent, pay-per-token prices. No lock-ins, no fiat-only or KYC barriers – just scalable AI infrastructure designed for Web3 builders and enterprises alike.
2\. You mentioned two more upcoming launches: ASI Chain and ASI Create. Can you give us an exclusive preview of what they are designed to do, and how they fit into the broader vision of the ASI ecosystem?
ASI Chain will anchor AI workloads directly to smart contracts, making compute verifiable and programmable. ASI Create is our builder’s layer – tools to design, fine-tune, and deploy AI agents with encrypted knowledge graphs, multimodality, and full ownership. Together with ASI Cloud, they form a stack that makes decentralized AI usable, trustworthy, and unstoppable.
3\. How do you see decentralized AI changing the way businesses operate in the next five years, especially compared to today’s centralized AI landscape?
Today, businesses rent AI from hyperscalers under opaque pricing and vendor lock-in. In five years, decentralized AI will look more like an open marketplace: verifiable compute, predictable costs, and AI agents businesses can actually own. It shifts AI from a product you consume to an ecosystem you co-create.
4\. You’re a strong advocate for ethical AI. What mechanisms or principles should guide decentralized AI networks to ensure they remain fair, transparent, and beneficial to society?
Decentralized AI must be governed by transparency in pricing, verifiability of compute, and open access to models. The mechanisms are cryptographic guarantees, not just corporate promises. Ethics in AI isn’t a whitepaper, it’s an architecture.
5\. Having led regulation for 60 countries at HSBC, how does your financial services and regulatory experience shape your perspective on decentralized AI adoption and compliance?
Having worked across 60 jurisdictions, I see decentralization as a compliance advantage. Distributed infrastructure allows us to embed transparency, auditability, and data sovereignty into the design. Instead of forcing AI into outdated regulatory molds, we’re building AI clouds that regulators can actually trust.
6\. Can you share specific examples of how AI on a decentralized infrastructure could address real-world business challenges better than centralized models?
A startup can spin up GPUs by the hour, pay in stablecoins, and avoid burning months negotiating hyperscaler contracts. An enterprise can benchmark multiple open-source LLMs with full visibility into cost and performance. Decentralized AI lowers friction where centralized clouds create bottlenecks.
7\. Looking ahead, what role do you see the ASI Alliance playing in the global AI race, and how will initiatives like ASI Cloud, Chain, and Create accelerate the path toward Artificial Superintelligence?
The AI race doesn’t have to be winner-takes-all. ASI Alliance is building the connective tissue — Cloud for compute, Chain for verifiable execution, Create for agent design. Together they accelerate the path to Artificial Superintelligence that is open, auditable, and aligned with humanity’s interests.