Most of the data for AI-driven systems and blockchain-based dapps powering the emerging global economic order run on centralized infrastructure. But centralization has its problems.

For example, dapps relying on centralized cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure are prone to censorship risks, monopoly control, and single points of failure.

Dapps also experience sudden downtimes, data inaccuracies, and disjointed data flows because centralized remote procedure call (RPC) providers fail to ensure an uninterrupted data supply from the backend to the frontend interface.

On the other hand, centralized service providers unilaterally decide which chains and RPCs an AI agent will use. Thus, advanced data requests may be unavailable or highly priced. Generally, the pricing structure remains opaque with steep charges for archival queries.

Further, providers can also feed stale data to AI agents in the absence of a transparent audit trail. The 2025 CDO Insights report from Amazon and Harvard Business Review shows that 52% of organizations have noted their data foundation’s readiness for genAI implementation to be inadequate.

The lack of high-quality datasets will lead to data scarcity within the AI industry, making model training even more difficult. According to researchers from Epoch, the University of Aberdeen, Tubingen, and MIT, scalable LLM training may hit a roadblock as public human-generated text data may be exhausted between 2026 and 2032.

Therefore, a decentralized infrastructure and data pipeline are better suited for dapps and AI systems since they fetch data from a permissionless, open-economy network. Three protocols, namely, Pocket Network, Sapien, and Intuition, are building the future of decentralized, human-centric infrastructure for the emerging tech ecosystem.

Pocket Network: Strengthening the Foundations of Decentralized Infrastructure

Pocket Network is a decentralized infrastructure protocol that provides the primary layer for open data markets, enabling access to datasets without depending on centralized data providers.

Decentralized protocols like Pocket Network offer data accessibility and information flow channels through an independent network of node operators. These distributed nodes handle data queries to provide seamless data availability without any downtime, eliminating centralized single failure points.

This layout reduces or eliminates the likelihood of cascade failures on-chain that would otherwise prevent users from gaining access to the network, which could affect things such as making trades or viewing one’s account balance. 

The overall network remains up and running even when multiple nodes remain offline. For example, AI trading bots in DeFi liquidity pools using Pocket Network will remain functional around the clock since individual nodes cannot block information flows, ensuring all dapps run smoothly.

The latest in continuous upgrades to the platform, Pocket’s Shannon upgrade, named for Claude Shannon, has transformed Pocket from a regular RPC provider to an open data-sharing economy among app developers. 

Pocket Network functions as an open AI network, with cost-efficient relay mining services that are 30-75% cheaper than its competitors. Further, its new ‘Pay Upfront’ model reduces relay charges to just $2.50 per million Relays, a new benchmark within the on-chain relay market.

The Network also offers a predictable and cost-effective token economy instead of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Developers stake Pocket tokens (POKT) for consistent access to the network without incurring unpredictable costs for workload surges.

But Pocket is not the only protocol to strengthen the pillars of decentralization. After all, the true essence of decentralization comes from a distributed community of humans. And that’s what Sapien and Intuition are building.

Sapien: Bolstering Decentralized Data Foundries

Sapien is a crypto-incentivized decentralized data foundry that leverages human knowledge to curate enterprise-grade AI training data.

Instead of relying on centralized data warehouses, Sapien crowdsources data collection and curation to a distributed network of human contributors. Every user’s inputs are recorded on immutable ledgers on-chain in real time, with incentives in place for high-quality work.

Sapien users gain access to tasks based on their previous performance and expertise level within the protocol, ensuring maximum quality and efficiency. This immutable ledger-dependent provenance system enhances traceability throughout the data collation procedure. Coupled with a hierarchical data scrutiny, data undergoes a multi-stage peer review to eliminate errors and ambiguity.

Crypto-powered decentralized data foundries like Sapien leverage human contributors who stake tokens as collateral. It facilitates a financial incentive structure that rewards high-quality data and slashes tokens as penalties for substandard data. This economic scheme helps match data quality with earnings, supporting sustainable engagement and consistency instead of short-term gains.

Since the decentralized data factory operates on-chain, it fosters trust by leveraging global human expertise. Being on-chain and getting crypto rewards means contributor reputations remain verifiable, quality assurance is maintained through staking, and peer validation ensures high data quality.

Another protocol that positions humans at the centre of the AI data lifecycle and thereby decentralizes the data pipeline is Intuition.

Intuition: Building an ‘Intuitive’ Data Economy

Intuition is a shared, token-weighted knowledge layer that connects people, AI, and apps across Web2 and Web3 for fast, high-quality data exchange.

As the name suggests, Intuition lets anyone ‘intuitively’ convert ideas, experiences, sentiment, and knowledge into data they own and monetize, putting control back in the hands of individuals, not centralized platforms. 

Data is the new oil, making it one of the most valuable resources, and Intuition helps humans to leverage the value of data and offers a democratic space to harness its economic potential.

Powered by $TRUST, the network meters read and write, route value to creators and curators, and allow anyone to stake for or against a claim to surface the signal over noise. Likes, comments, and reviews become verifiable context with provenance. As that signal compounds, contributors earn. The result is a universal identity and data context layer that moves with you across the internet: open, composable, and credibly neutral.

More broadly, projects like Pocket Network, Sapien, and Intuition show how decentralized approaches to data and infrastructure are shifting from theory into practice, with real implications for the next wave of AI and blockchain adoption, and for investors watching the future of the data economy.

This industry announcement article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.