Exclusive Interview with Sahara AI Co-Founder: From Concept to Leadership, How to Build an AI Blockchain that Benefits Everyone

Written by: 1912212.eth, Foresight News

Interviewee: Sean, Co-founder of Sahara AI

Since the establishment of smart contracts on Ethereum, countless project protocols have emerged, giving rise to various tracks, narratives, and exaggerated wealth effects. However, in this cycle, we seem to be facing significant difficulties. In the current environment of scarce innovation in the crypto industry, widespread confusion and anxiety have become the norm. From past concept-driven phases to money-burning expansions, and from commercial validation stages to structural sedimentation periods, the history of blockchain development seems to be a complete replication of the past internet development process. Where is the future blockchain world headed? What kind of applications or protocols will stand out from this?

Some entrepreneurs are setting their sights on AI. In recent years, the explosive growth of AI has triggered profound changes across various industries worldwide, becoming one of the most fashionable technological trends. At the same time, the question of what kind of chemical reaction will occur between AI and Crypto has become a common topic among entrepreneurs. Can the "chemical reaction" between the two actually compensate for each other's shortcomings, or will it give rise to entirely new application scenarios and business models that revolutionize the industry?

In this wave, Sahara AI, as the world's first AI-native blockchain platform, is trying to promote further integration through technological innovation. Sahara AI is not only committed to building an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain ecosystem but also addresses the registration, licensing, and monetization challenges of AI assets through transparent and verifiable on-chain protocols, establishing a new paradigm of "rights + ownership + revenue" for AI contributors. In April 2025, Sahara AI was ranked by the world's top market research institution CB as one of the 100 most promising AI startups globally, which is rare among entrepreneurial projects that integrate Web3 and AI.

This time we invited Sean, the co-founder of Sahara AI, for an exclusive interview, detailing his thoughts on AI, Crypto, and Sahara AI. Sean holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has served as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. He has also contributed to research at the Allen Institute for AI, one of the world's most influential nonprofit AI research organizations. His research and achievements have received multiple international awards and honors in the industry, including: WSDM Test of Time Paper Award, Samsung AI Research Award, MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35, and Forbes 30 Under 30. Below is the full text of the interview:

Foresight News: As a post-90s individual, you are still the youngest tenured AI professor at the University of Southern California. You have an impressive academic background and a solid industry experience in the field of computer science. The hottest technology trend in recent years is undoubtedly AI, which has garnered widespread attention from large models to various practical AI applications. As an expert deeply engaged in the field of artificial intelligence, how do you view the rapid iteration of AI over the past year? What does the future of AI look like in your eyes? What trends are currently emerging?

Sean: In fact, compared to so many academic titles, what I personally enjoy more at the moment is being the Co-founder and CEO of Sahara. My personal entrepreneurial direction also largely indicates that the future direction of AI is to use blockchain technology or decentralized economic collaboration to solve one of the most important issues of AI, the issue of "ownership."

The development of AI in the past two years is quite similar to the pace when computer vision exploded a few years ago. We can now see several obvious trends.

The first is "Resource Centralization." This means that large data centers and an increasing number of high-performance GPUs are controlled by a handful of large companies. These resources enable them to continuously train larger models and enhance AI capabilities.

The second is "talent concentration." Big companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI can recruit the top PhDs, engineers, and architects from around the world, which further widens the gap with other companies.

The third is "data acquisition capability." These companies have money and can spend a lot of funds to purchase training data, such as hiring professional companies like Scale AI for data annotation, or even directly inviting experts and PhDs to help select data and train models.

Driven by these conditions, the capabilities of AI models have progressed rapidly. Behind all this is a repeatedly validated principle: as long as you have more data, larger models, and stronger computing power, the performance of AI will improve. This principle is called the "Scaling Law."

Of course, the design and architecture of models are also being improved, but the main driving force behind the rapid development of AI now is still to continue stacking data, stacking models, and stacking computing power, and this direction currently seems far from reaching its limit.

The future of AI is not just about increasingly powerful technology, more applications, and improving everyone's efficiency. You can compare it to the development of the internet back in the day—its revolution was not solely due to the invention of technologies like DNS and browsers, but because it enabled everyone to participate in content creation and turn their ideas into products, ultimately forming a complete ecosystem.

AI is also on a similar path. In the future, AI agents will help anyone—regardless of whether you understand programming or have a technical background—to quickly turn their creativity and expertise into AI-driven content or applications, and even make money. Everyone will be able to find their place in the AI world and spread their ideas quickly.

This brings us back to the ideal future for AI that we discussed earlier, which is not only about the strength of AI capabilities but also about how the issue of AI "ownership" can be properly resolved. For example, how is a model trained? Whose data is used? If an AI agent is continuously iterated through various data and developers, how will its future earnings be automatically, fairly, and transparently distributed to these contributors? These questions are still rarely discussed seriously, but I believe they are equally important.

These issues, although not fully addressed in the current AI industry and academia, are equally important as AI capabilities themselves. Blockchain has a significant opportunity to solve these problems, which is one of the core directions that Sahara AI is currently focusing on. Therefore, Sahara AI addresses problems for AI, and also uses AI to solve problems for blockchain.

Foresight News: The industry has been watching what kind of chemistry happens with AI in the crypto space, with a wave of new projects popping up in the last year or two. There are those who do all kinds of DePINs, and there are those who focus on computing power, but there are few AI platforms that specialize in the blockchain field. What do you think about the combination of AI and encryption, which is all about rubbing the heat and not standing the test of time? What problems do you think the combination of AI and blockchain still needs to be solved?

Sean: Over the past two years, I have often seen discussions about "blockchain + AI" focusing on the three modules of AI: data, computing power, and models. As a result, a bunch of projects have started researching how to handle data, train models, and provide computing power in a decentralized way. It sounds quite logical, but this merely treats blockchain as a tool to piece things together, without truly integrating blockchain and AI. Moreover, the inability to integrate means that it cannot genuinely support the development of AI blockchain.

Let's think of a question together: Can blockchain and encryption technology really change the way AI develops?

Now the biggest role of AI is to improve the productivity of individuals and organizations; The essence of Crypto is to redefine "who owns what" and who should get how much in return. It provides an open and transparent way to quantify a person's contribution to a system and the corresponding returns. This means that we can use blockchain to redefine "ownership" and "profit sharing mechanism" in the AI world.

This is what Sahara aims to create - a truly fair, open, and transparent AI ecosystem. Everyone can turn their ideas and creativity into AI applications using the tools provided by Sahara, whether it's tools that enhance work efficiency, fun entertainment products, or becoming part of other AI systems. As long as it has value, anyone can get involved, be recognized, and earn income.

To achieve this goal, there are two core technical and system-level challenges:

How can AI "run off-chain" while protecting privacy? We hope that most AI computations can be completed securely and efficiently offline, but their results and important information can still be recorded on-chain, achieving the best combination of "off-chain computation + on-chain trust." How can we establish a complete "economic closed loop"? Currently, many AI projects generate revenue from the application layer, but upstream model developers, data contributors, and computing power providers find it difficult to receive reasonable profit sharing. We hope to use smart contracts to automatically and transparently distribute these earnings to all participants, rather than relying on individuals to make decisions. This is the true meaning of "decentralized production relations."

We believe that only in this way will the combination of AI and blockchain be more than just a "stack of fun", but a truly user-driven, participatory, and incentivized AI future. Using AI to improve efficiency is just the beginning, and we want to redefine how AI is produced and how everyone participates through the "transparent, fair, and motivating" characteristics of blockchain. What we hope to build is a new AI ecosystem, where developers and communities participate, collaborate, build, and govern together, not by large companies. In this way, the development of AI is no longer just an exclusive stage for Web2 giants, but a new path that is more open and fair.

Foresight News: What role do you think Sahara AI plays in today's blockchain world? As the founder, what do you envision Sahara will look like in the next 5 years?

Sean: The AI future world I envision should be open, democratic, and inclusive, where everyone can participate. In this world, people can use AI to create content, develop their own applications, express creativity, disseminate ideas, and even turn their knowledge and creativity into income.

What Sahara aims to do is to provide everyone with a "golden shovel"—that is, tools and infrastructure that allow everyone to create their own AI content and applications, and continuously earn profits in an open and transparent manner.

In the next five years, Sahara will focus on two things:

Propose a brand new technical architecture that makes AI development and collaboration more efficient.

Redesign the "production relations" and "value distribution mechanism" in the AI ecosystem.

In simple terms, we not only help everyone create AI applications faster, but more importantly, we ensure that everyone involved in the creation is seen, recognized, and fairly rewarded.

For example, the birth of an AI agent may involve three types of people: those who provide data, those who provide computing power, and those who design the agent. How should these three parties reasonably divide their labor and profits? These are not decisions that can be made off the top of the head; they require technical support and mechanism design.

So in the future AI world, Sahara is not just a tool provider; we want to become a "builder of new rules" that helps the entire ecosystem establish a truly fair, transparent, and collaborative way of operation.

Foresight News: What milestones has Sahara AI completed in order to build an AI blockchain platform?

Sean: Sahara AI's mission has been very clear from the beginning: to reconstruct the production and distribution order of AI on the chain.

Sahara has already generated over 3.2 million on-chain accounts during the private testing phase, with daily active accounts remaining stable at over 1.4 million. Among them, more than 200,000 users have actually participated in our data service platform, completing tasks such as labeling, training, and validation, while also receiving corresponding on-chain incentives. Even with the system not fully open, millions of users are still waiting in line to join, which itself is a strong validation of our vision.

Recently, we officially released the first phase of the SIWA testnet. This is the first official on-chain on-chain on-ramp to the Sahara ecosystem and a significant milestone on our way to mainnet. The core role of SIWA is to provide a basic protocol for the confirmation, authorization, and monetization of AI assets such as datasets, models, and agents, and to establish asset ownership and profit sharing logic in a transparent and automated way on the chain. This provides unified, publicly verifiable collaboration rules for developers, data providers, and model builders.

We hope to allow more developers and ecosystem contributors to personally participate in this test network, gain a deeper understanding of the architecture of Sahara, and help us improve the protocol. The next goal is to accelerate the deployment of the mainnet, turning this truly open, fair, and participatory AI future from concept into reality.

Foresight News: The SIWA developer testnet of Sahara AI has been launched. What is the cost-effectiveness performance of AI and blockchain in practical deployment? You mentioned in the tweet that a complete AI developer platform and AI marketplace will be released soon; what does that mean? Will the mainnet be launched as originally planned in Q3? Developers are crucial for the platform. How does Sahara AI attract these AI developers?

Sean: The best way to attract is to have what they desperately need at the right moment, and perhaps only we have it. Rather than creating demand, we are better at utilizing the capabilities of technological products to meet the objectively existing massive demand. The visible demand from developers for AI capabilities is rapidly increasing. This is not only because AI is the current technological hotspot, but also because developers need AI to improve creative efficiency, accelerate product iteration, and reduce operational costs. This is a structural trend, not a short-term topic. Nowadays, almost every public chain is trying to attract AI developers, which also indirectly indicates the real demand in the market.

Sahara is responding to this huge market that already exists. What we provide is not a single function, but a complete tool stack covering data confirmation, model hosting, and revenue distribution to the Agent. That's why we launched the SIWA Developer Testnet, and it's the strategic significance of the upcoming AI development platform and AI market. The current real-world use of SIWA has been very positive. Many early developers reported that the billing model designed according to the on-chain usage requirements has excellent cost-effectiveness and a stable and reliable deployment experience, which can support application-level agent invocation and model services.

The launch of the AI development platform and AI marketplace will allow Sahara to truly move from a "platform that provides tools" to a "platform for value participation". When developers can register all assets such as data, models, and agents on the chain, and obtain long-term profit sharing through the licensing mechanism, the entire AI supply chain will be truly activated. This will be one of Sahara's most disruptive values. The mainnet is still progressing as planned, and the official launch is expected in the third quarter. We are also launching more development tools, incentive programs, and ecosystem cooperation programs to further attract AI developers from different on-chain ecosystems and industry fields to join.

For us, developers are not just users of the platform, but the core drivers of the AI collaborative economy. Sahara will continue to provide them with resources, structure, and incentives to support them in playing a truly leading role in the next generation of the AI economic order.

Foresight News: What is the biggest insight (experience or lesson) during the entrepreneurial process? Was there a moment that made you feel "we are on the right track"?

Sean: Sahara AI is not just a team working on products, but more like a social experiment pushing the entire new era of AI forward together with all friends interested in AI. I truly feel that—the community is driving us forward. Especially when more and more developers actively come to us, saying they want to participate and use Sahara to realize their ideas, at that moment we realize: this vision is no longer just our own, but a collective call of the entire era.

In this wave, Sahara's role is that of a platform; we provide tools and infrastructure to help more people engage in the creation of AI. But we are not just a platform; we are also a medium—carrying the decentralized, open, community-driven future of AI.

We are very grateful for the culture and strength of this community. It is global, without borders, and everyone can freely share their thoughts and challenge each other's viewpoints. Starting a business in such an environment is, in fact, a privilege and a responsibility. Sahara is not moving forward alone, but together with the entire community, slowly shaping a new era of AI + blockchain.

Foresight News: We all know that the economic cycle of a crypto project is very important, so how does Sahara AI ensure that the AI economy it aims to build can maintain a positive cycle?

Sean: Imagine if you are a developer of an AI project. At first, you might use the underlying infrastructure provided by Sahara, such as deploying agents and calling models. These operations are similar to paying Gas on other public chains to get the system running. You would definitely want your model to perform better, right? At this point, you might connect to Sahara's data labeling market to obtain higher quality data that is closer to your scenario from global labelers, helping you optimize the performance of your model. What's even more interesting is that these labeled users are not just helping you train the model; many times, they also become early users of your product, and a whole ecosystem naturally connects like this.

For users, every participation actually creates value, whether it's labeling data, providing feedback, or helping to test the model. All of this will be automatically recorded by the system, and they will receive rewards on the blockchain based on their contributions, which is the true "earn while you use." Unlike before, where once the data was used, it had no further relation to you.

What I just mentioned is just a very typical usage scenario. In fact, from a broader perspective, we believe that a healthy economic system must be fundamentally based on real demand and usage behaviors. What Sahara aims to do is not just to be a tool provider, but to participate in the reconstruction of the rules: to build a truly fair, verifiable new AI order that everyone can participate in and benefit from. The "positive cycle AI economy" that we have been promoting essentially means that everyone's contributions are meaningful and rewarded.

Foresight News: What is the biggest insight (experience or lesson) during the entrepreneurial process?

Sean: Over the past few years working on Sahara, my biggest feeling is that the power of the blockchain community is truly immense and completely without boundaries. People from all over the world, whether developers, users, or even critics, provide us with feedback and suggestions, all of which have become an important driving force for us to keep moving forward.

From the very beginning, we have regarded ourselves as "listeners." Whether it is technical advice or feedback from users after actually using the product, we listen carefully and make serious improvements. We always maintain a state of "learning"—even though Sahara is now recognized as one of the top 100 most promising AI startups in the world, we know that AI and Web3 are still in their early stages, and many things do not yet have standard answers.

So we don't feel that we have succeeded, but we are very sure: continuous learning and continuous improvement are the most important things. Our team often studies the successes and failures of other projects, constantly adjusting the product direction and optimizing business strategies. Whenever we encounter key decision points, our attitude is: stay open and keep iterating.

This is also the reason why we have been able to persist until now and continue moving forward.

Foresight News: Some investors in the crypto circle seem to have a lot of grievances against professor coins. Some believe that many professor coins are just for show, or that their product technology is far from the users, merely boasting about how powerful their technology is. How do you evaluate this viewpoint? What is different about the tokens launched by Sahara AI?

Sean: I manage nearly 10 different product lines at Sahara every day, and I need to be clear about who is doing what and what the progress is. I also have to constantly coordinate and connect with different departments; having over ten meetings a day is the norm, and I often spend weekends testing products. If we talk about "standing on the platform", I might be the one who works the hardest, haha. Although I am a professor, I am also a post-90s generation, and like most entrepreneurs, I spend over ten hours a day on my own startup project.

In addition to being a co-founder of Sahara, I am also the CEO. I have been involved in everything from product design, technical development, scientific exploration, to business cooperation and ecosystem building. Especially in terms of product positioning and development roadmap, I have invested the most effort. We have been thinking about how to find a truly valuable position for Sahara in the AI ecosystem of Web2 and the crypto world of Web3 - identifying suitable users and addressing their real pain points, which are things I ponder every day.

As for our Sahara token, my understanding is that it is the "golden shovel" of the AI world. We hope that everyone can use Sahara to create their own AI applications and content, turning their ideas into reality, and together build a richer AI future.

The main functions of Sahara Token are several:

User Incentives: Encourage everyone to use AI to create truly valuable content and tools.

Platform settlement: For example, when you create an AI agent, buy and sell datasets, or trade models, you use Tokens to pay the fees.

Participating in the ecosystem: In the future, Tokens can also be "staked" on your favorite AI projects, becoming a "co-owner" of these AI assets, and then sharing the profits proportionally.

In simple terms, we hope that Sahara Token truly becomes the golden shovel for everyone to access the AI world, rather than just a bunch of concepts floating in the air.