Decentralized computing power is needed. Currently, the major centralized public cloud providers operate in an oligopoly, making them prime targets for censorship and surveillance, says Dr. Max Lee, CEO of ComputeCoin and an assistant professor at Columbia University.
The digital world is constantly evolving with new technologies and applications emerging every day. One of the most important trends is the rise of Web3 – a decentralized, peer-to-peer network that allows users to communicate directly without intermediaries.
This shift away from centralized services is due to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies are digital assets that use cryptography to secure their transactions and control the creation of new units. Blockchain is a distributed database that enables transparent and secure record keeping.
Web3 projects are built on these technologies, enabling decentralized applications ranging from social networking and gaming platforms to marketplaces and financial services.
Currently, most Web3 projects are supported by centralized infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, which is at odds with Web3’s decentralized approach. Additionally, these vendors are not well-suited to support Web3 applications due to their high cost, inefficiency, and lack of support for crypto-native developers and teams.
Web3 is needed to solve problems that Web2 cannot solve: lack of trust, high costs, inefficient middlemen, and security breaches. Despite these advantages, few people are using Web3 applications due to their complexity and lack of development tools.
Web3 projects need from infrastructure providers
To be successful, Web3 projects need access to a robust infrastructure that is reliable, scalable, and cost-effective. In the Metaverse, for example, many demanding tasks must be performed in order for things to run smoothly. These include 3D graphics operations, streaming media, data reconciliation and synchronization, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), among others. A good computing infrastructure is critical to meeting these challenges.
In addition, it is important that this infrastructure is as decentralized as possible to avoid single points of failure. Traditional Web2 companies like Fortnite use AWS’s centralized infrastructure. Similarly, Microsoft’s upcoming Metaverse platform Mesh also runs on Azure. While these providers can provide the necessary computing power for these applications, they come with several drawbacks.
Decentralized Computing Vs Centralized Cloud
For one, the centralized cloud is becoming more expensive. First, the major public cloud providers form an oligopoly, which allows them to drive up prices. Second, these providers are expanding their data centers and hiring more employees, increasing infrastructure and labor costs. Finally, the public cloud is becoming more popular, which means that the demand has exceeded the supply, and the price is increasing. Pandemic-driven work-from-home trends are exacerbating this problem.
The centralized nature of the centralized cloud makes it a prime target for censorship and surveillance. For example, governments in some provinces have strict controls on what can be found on the Internet, so they are using cloud services to monitor and track their citizens.
Moreover, latency issues associated with centralized cloud can be a major problem for Web3 applications. When more users are out of the data center, data takes longer to travel back and forth, which can lead to a sub-optimal user experience.
Finally, the centralized cloud simply cannot cope with decentralized infrastructure. If one node goes down, the entire system can be affected. This was painfully evident during AWS’s recent string of outages that brought down so many popular websites and services.
As a result, many Web3 projects are looking for alternative infrastructure providers that are more suitable for their needs. Possible solutions include IPFS and Filecoin, which provide decentralized storage solutions, and Computecoin, the Web3 version of AWS, which provides decentralized computing and storage solutions, but there are not many options.
The importance of serverless clouds
One of the biggest trends in the infrastructure space is the rise of serverless computing. Serverless computing is a cloud-based computing model that allows developers to write code without worrying about server provisioning or management.
This trend is particularly important for Web3 applications, as it allows developers to focus on building their applications instead of worrying about the underlying infrastructure. In addition, serverless computing is more cost-effective than traditional options because it is only used for actual usage rather than a regular monthly fee.
Decentralized service providers are naturally well-suited to providing serverless computing solutions because they do not already have distributed and centralized servers. For example, Computecoin provides a serverless cloud platform that can be used to deploy and run Web3 applications.
Decentralized Computing: How It Works and Why It Matters
Decentralized computer networks are a new breed of computer infrastructure, a new breed that has the potential to change the way we think and use computer resources.
With decentralized computing, there is no need for a central authority to manage and allocate resources. Instead, resources are aggregated and optimized across the network, resulting in more efficient and cost-effective use of resources.
Rather than building its own data center or using public cloud providers such as AWS, Web 3.0 applications now have access to vast amounts of computing resources distributed around the world.
This has many benefits for both developers and users of decentralized applications. It lowers barriers to entry for developers and makes it easier to launch new apps. For users, it gives more choice and flexibility in how they use applications.
Decentralized computing opportunities
Decentralized computing also has the potential to improve application performance by reducing latency and increasing throughput. This is because decentralized computing networks integrate resources from around the world and provide a more geographically dispersed infrastructure than traditional data centers. Decentralized computing can also help reduce costs by utilizing unused or underutilized resources such as idle computers or excess capacity.
Decentralized computing matters because of its potential to democratize access to computing resources and enable new classes of applications that are impossible with traditional infrastructure. Consider Metaverse gaming platforms that require low latency, high performance computing and high throughput to function properly. Decentralized computing can provide the necessary resources to power such applications without the need for a central authority.
In conclusion, decentralized computing is a new type of computing infrastructure that has the potential to change the way we think and use computing resources. It is more efficient, cost-effective and scalable than traditional infrastructure, and can enable new classes of applications that are not possible with traditional infrastructure.
About the author
Dr. Max Lee is the founder and CEO of Computecoin, co-founder of Nakamoto and Turing Labs (N&T Labs), and managing partner of New York-based VC Aves Lair. He is an assistant professor at Columbia University (New York City).
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