Ora, a blockchain project that aims to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into decentralized applications (dapps), announced that it has raised $20 million from investors, including Hashkey Capital, Polychain, and HF0. In a news statement, the project stated that the additional funding will enable it to “continue developing its technology and infrastructure for tokenizing AI models and bringing decentralized AI to the Ethereum ecosystem.”
According to its project literature, Ora, which was established in 2022 and bills itself as a “verifiable oracle protocol,” gives programmers the resources they need to create end-to-end, trustless, decentralized applications that rely on AI. A blockchain receives data from an oracle that includes real-time information about prices, temperatures, and other factors.
“Their Optimistic Machine Learning (opML) technology is the foundational mechanism behind their revolutionary product, opp/ai,” according to the statement. “Through optimistic systems and zero-knowledge technology, it will provide secure and efficient on-chain machine learning with privacy-preserving features.” Additionally, Ora provides a service known as “initial model offering,” or IMO, which allows tokenization of ownership of open-source AI models. In the release, Ora co-founder Kartin Wong noted that the project would “unlock the design space for AI dapps.”