Hongik University Joins Theta Network as New Research Partner

Volkswagen ADMT, the autonomous vehicle testing subsidiary of the carmaker, has partnered with Hivemapper’s Bee Maps to enhance its self-driving operations through real-time mapping data. This collaboration underscores the increasing reliance on crowdsourced geospatial data by autonomous ride-sharing companies, which are in search of more accurate and current mapping infrastructure. The street-level imagery collected by contributors using Hivemapper cameras will play a crucial role in validating Volkswagen's self-driving technology, particularly in improving the precision of curbside pick-ups and drop-offs. The partnership also highlights the rise of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), which leverage blockchain incentives to facilitate real-world data collection. Hivemapper is recognized as a leading DePIN project within the Solana ecosystem. Ariel Seidman, CEO of Hivemapper, emphasized this transition from static to dynamic mapping, stating that the effectiveness of real-world autonomy is contingent upon high-quality data that adapts as rapidly as urban environments do. In recent months, Volkswagen's autonomous driving unit has been actively testing its 'Robotaxi' fleet and has entered into a partnership with Uber to introduce the service in U.S. markets, with pilot operations slated for late 2025 and a broader launch anticipated in 2026. Contributors to Bee Maps earn cryptocurrency rewards for their contributions, while AI technology processes the images to identify important elements such as signage, construction zones, and lane closures, ensuring that the data remains up-to-date.

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The Theta ecosystem is witnessing significant advancements as it gains traction across various sectors including sports, media, academia, and AI startups. In the latest June Roundup, several noteworthy developments have been highlighted. One of the major updates comes from EdgeCloud, which has launched EdgeCloud Hybrid, a decentralized GPU marketplace catering to both consumer and enterprise users. This innovation is expected to enhance the accessibility and efficiency of GPU resources within the Theta network. In the realm of sports, the NBA's Houston Rockets have officially introduced ClutchBot, an AI-powered mascot developed with EdgeCloud technology. Additionally, Major League Soccer's Philadelphia Union has announced plans to launch a new fan app that will leverage Theta's capabilities. These initiatives signify a growing trend of integrating blockchain technology into sports, enhancing fan engagement and interaction. Furthermore, ThetaCrypto.com has opened trading for THETA and TFUEL to U.S. users, coinciding with a new marketing and trading campaign aimed at expanding its user base. Esports continues to embrace the Theta ecosystem, with prominent organizations like Gen.G and Sheep Esports launching new AI bots on EdgeCloud. Moreover, Theta has joined Aethir's AI Unbundled Web3 x AI Alliance, further solidifying its position in the AI and blockchain intersection. AlphaCrypto has also introduced new trading analysis features powered by EdgeCloud, while EdgeCloud has added support for the DeepSeek R1 LLM. Looking ahead, the premier Theta hackathon, BlockJam, is set to take place during ThetaEuroCon in Berlin this September, promising to be a significant event for developers and enthusiasts alike.

IoTeX, the decentralized network bridging the physical and digital worlds, announced a significant expansion into artificial intelligence. This move introduces a unified ecosystem for Physical AI, a new category of intelligence powered by real-world data from machines, devices, and decentralized infrastructure. The transition of AI systems from digital environments to real-world applications emphasizes the importance of access to live, trustworthy data from the physical surroundings. IoTeX aims to enable a new class of AI grounded in reality by creating a shared infrastructure where machines and AI agents can coordinate via verified, real-time data, transforming decentralized networks into a foundation for responsive, real-world AI systems. Since its establishment in 2017, IoTeX has been at the forefront of technologies bridging physical devices with blockchain networks. The company's latest AI expansion aligns with its vision of linking the demand for real-time, verifiable data from AI developers with the supply of connected devices and DePIN participants on IoTeX. The AI infrastructure is powered by IoTeX Layer 1 Blockchain for secure coordination, the ioID Protocol for decentralized machine authentication, Quicksilver AI framework for transforming raw machine signals, and the IOTX Token for governance and incentives. Central to IoTeX's AI architecture are Realms, evolving knowledge bases of real-time, real-world data that synthesize insights from machines, people, and sensors to generate actionable intelligence in various sectors like mobility, health, energy, and robotics. Realms serve the dual purpose of providing real-time situational awareness for AI agents and offering dynamic environments for training the next generation of Physical AI models. As data flows into a Realm from connected devices and DePIN nodes, its intelligence becomes more precise, adaptive, and valuable, evolving into living knowledge bases that scale with participation. IoTeX's vision is to build dynamic economies of intelligence where machines, people, and AI collaborate to generate continuously evolving knowledge, forming a global constellation of verified environments where physical intelligence becomes a scalable and monetizable resource for real-world AI applications.

Theta EdgeCloud has unveiled an innovative feature: a large language model (LLM) inference service that provides distributed verifiability. This groundbreaking service allows AI agents and chatbots to perform LLM inference that is both trustworthy and independently verifiable, a first in the industry. By leveraging blockchain-backed public randomness beacons, Theta EdgeCloud combines advanced AI technology with the decentralized and trustless nature of blockchain, making it the only platform to offer such capabilities among both crypto-native and traditional cloud services. This development is particularly significant for sectors like enterprise and academia, where the integrity of computational outputs is crucial. The need for trust in AI outputs has become increasingly important as modern AI agents depend heavily on LLMs for generating responses and executing complex tasks. Traditionally, many frameworks have relied on centralized LLM APIs or hardware-enforced security, which can compromise the reliability of results. The introduction of DeepSeek-V3/R1, an open-source alternative to proprietary LLMs, paves the way for full-stack verification. Theta EdgeCloud has taken this a step further by implementing a Distributed Verifiable Inference system, ensuring that LLM outputs are reproducible and tamper-proof, even from the service provider itself. The newly released industry-grade verifiable LLM inference engine is integrated into Theta EdgeCloud, achieving public availability through deterministic token probability and verifiable sampling. By utilizing open-source models, users can independently verify the next-token probability distribution. The incorporation of a publicly verifiable random seed ensures that the sampling process is reproducible and transparent. This two-part design guarantees that no party can tamper with the model output, thereby enhancing the integrity of AI outputs. As AI continues to permeate various aspects of life and commerce, the ability to verify and trust these outputs will be essential for safety and security, marking a significant advancement in the field of AI.

In May, CUDOS made significant strides in the cloud computing landscape, particularly in the realm of decentralized infrastructure. The highlight of the month was the participation in Consensus 2025, where the emphasis was placed on the necessity of open, permissionless, and privacy-preserving compute infrastructure. Developers and teams from various sectors, including DeFi and AI, expressed their frustrations with centralized cloud solutions, indicating a growing demand for alternatives like CUDOS Intercloud, which offers digital wallet-authenticated GPU access without the need for accounts or KYC. Additionally, CUDOS introduced new one-click deployment templates, enhancing the ease of AI experimentation. The latest additions, including Llama 3.1 and Llama 3.3, complement existing templates like Dify and JupyterLab, allowing users to launch full-stack deployments with minimal effort. Furthermore, the integration of Squid Router enables payments across over 70 chains, simplifying the process for users to pay for compute resources in their native tokens without the need for bridging. The metrics for May reflect CUDOS's rapid growth, with a record $239,300 in on-demand revenue and over 330,000 GPU compute hours consumed. The ecosystem has expanded to include more than 18,000 users and a total revenue exceeding $2 million. Moreover, the first containerized compute hardware for the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance was deployed, marking a pivotal step towards distributed computing solutions. CUDOS continues to innovate and scale, reinforcing its commitment to building a robust and accessible cloud infrastructure for the future.