ArkStream Capital: Why We Invested in io.net?
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ArkStream Capital: Why We Invested in io.net?
ArkStream Capital's investment is not only a recognition of io.net's future potential, but also a strong endorsement of the future direction of AI, DePIN, and broader technological fields.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy ArkStream Capital
ArkStream Capital recently completed its Series A investment in io.net, a round led by Hack VC with participation from over 20 prominent venture capital firms and angel investors from both overseas and China, raising a total of $30 million. io.net represents a key strategic investment by ArkStream Capital in the artificial intelligence (AI) and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) sector, reflecting our conviction that AI will be at the forefront of innovation in this market cycle.
Why We Invested in io.net: Investing in the New Oil of the AI Era—Decentralized Mining of Global Compute Capacity
With the rapid development and widespread adoption of AI technologies, global demand for computing power is growing exponentially—particularly for GPUs (graphics processing units). This surge in demand is both vertical and horizontal: vertically, as tech giants race to acquire Nvidia GPUs to train increasingly large language models (LLMs) with more parameters; and horizontally, as countless AI startups seek to apply these technologies across use cases such as recommendation systems, education, personal health, medical research, and supply chains. This insatiable demand has made GPUs the "new oil" of the AI era.
Image source: NetScribes, Ark Invest
io.net’s Unique Solution
To address the global shortage of GPUs, io.net offers an innovative solution. By leveraging cryptographic technology to coordinate human collaboration worldwide, io.net unlocks massive underutilized compute capacity. Dubbed the “Airbnb for GPUs,” it operates on the Solana blockchain, providing a decentralized, permissionless platform for global collaboration, verification, and payments. It enables the sharing of idle GPU power from hardware clusters such as data centers, crypto mining farms, gaming PCs, and high-performance workstations.
Advantages and Impact of io.net
io.net not only offers customers instant, permissionless access to GPU resources at 10–20% of the cost of centralized cloud providers but also incentivizes compute providers through the upcoming IO token, accelerating progress toward its goal of connecting one million GPUs. Compared to other DePIN compute projects, io.net focuses exclusively on GPU computing and already leads its peers in network scale by over 100x. Moreover, io.net is the first project in the blockchain space to integrate advanced ML technology stacks—including Ray clusters, Kubernetes, and large-scale distributed training systems—into a GPU-based DePIN network at production scale, giving it a technological edge not just in quantity of GPUs, but also in model training and application capabilities.
Image source: ArkStream Research; Data source: io.net, depinhub.io, stats.akash.network
Future Outlook and Partnerships
As io.net continues to grow, its engineering team aims to scale the network to support 500,000 concurrent GPUs—rivaling the capacity of centralized cloud providers—and deliver Web2-equivalent services at significantly lower costs. Through close partnerships with leading DePIN and AI players including Render Network, Filecoin, Solana, and Ritual, io.net is solidifying its position as a core infrastructure provider in the ecosystem. We believe io.net will emerge as the dominant decentralized GPU network and settlement layer in the medium to long term, energizing the entire Web3 x AI landscape.
Conclusion
ArkStream Capital’s investment reflects not only confidence in io.net’s future potential but also a strong belief in the transformative trajectory of AI, DePIN, and broader technological innovation. As an early mover and supporter in the space, ArkStream Capital will continue to provide io.net with strategic support in compute infrastructure and ecosystem connectivity, together shaping a new era of AI-powered decentralized networks.
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