SingularityNET Launches Development of New, Ledgerless Cardano Sidechain Specialized for Decentralized AI

On Feb. 2, 2022, at the LEAP technology conference, SingularityNET founder/CEO Dr. Ben Goertzel will announce the Hypercycle initiative, a new layer 2 blockchain network designed to supply massively scalable, low-cost infrastructure for decentralized AI applications and other associated software.

Hypercycle will operate as a sidechain of Cardano, one of the top chains globally, leveraging Cardano’s Hydra sidechain framework, along with SingularityNET’s proof of reputation methodology and core algorithms and data structures from the TODA ledgerless blockchain framework. The Hypercycle project will be led by TODA co-founder Toufi Saliba along with Dr. Goertzel and a team of technical experts drawn from the SingularityNET and TODA ecosystems.

It is now widely recognized that, if blockchain networks are to fulfill their promise of displacing centralized information processing systems, they will require dramatic improvements in scalability and computational and economic efficiency. It is also increasingly believed that the clearest route to achieving these improvements is via “layer 2” networks, which carry out detailed transactions in an optimized manner and then report summaries to their base “layer 1” network. Hypercycle as a layer 2 sidechain interacting with the layer 1 Cardano network exemplifies this pattern, but with multiple novel and unique aspects:

• It will be the first layer 2 network customized for complex multi-agent AI systems such as evolutionary algorithms and machine learning model ensembles
• It will be the first layer 2 network to dispense with the replicated ledger at the core of most blockchains, in favor of the more fully decentralized approach characterizing the TODA design.
• It will be the first layer 2 network to leverage “proof of reputation” to overcome the limitations associated with traditional blockchain consensus methods such as proof of work and proof of stake
• It is also the first layer 2 network to be announced for the Cardano ecosystem

Hypercycle’s foundation on Cardano means that scripts written in Cardano’s Plutus smart contract language will be able to run on Hypercycle as well. However, in some cases Hypercycle will run the same scripts radically faster and less expensively and there will also be additional library functions only available for Plutus scripts running on the Hypercycle sidechain.

Development on Hypercycle is now at the early stage and will ramp up during Q2 2022. Dr. Goertzel says:

“The vision with which we founded SingularityNET was to use blockchain networks to deliver beneficial artificial general intelligence to the world in a way that’s truly democratic and decentralized. We believe this is both the best way to provide practical AI functions across various vertical markets including finance, healthcare, smart cities, social media and many others, and the best way to ensure a positive long term outcome for humanity as AGI gets more and more powerful. But to deliver on this vision will require not only significant AI advances – which we’re working on – but serious improvements to available blockchain infrastructure. Hypercycle will leverage Cardano’s outstanding underlying structures and algorithms along with other ingredients like TODA and proof of reputation to provide the framework SingularityNET ultimately needs to deliver beneficial AGI.”

About SingularityNET

SingularityNET is a fully-fledged AI ecosystem with a rich community all working toward the global distribution of AI. It is the first and only decentralized platform allowing AIs to cooperate and coordinate at scale, while enabling everyone to take advantage of a global network of AI algorithms, services, and agent. No longer must AI technology exist in silos, only capable of operating within a specific company, infrastructure, or industry.