Ilya Polosukhin "Arrival of the AI Era...NEAR to be at the Center"

Ilya Polosukhin, founder of NEAR Protocol, asserted that artificial intelligence (AI) will make all decisions in the future and that NEAR is a blockchain infrastructure optimized for this AI transition era.

At 'BUIDL Asia 2025' held in Songpa-gu, Seoul on the 15th, founder Polosukhin delivered a keynote speech on the topic 'Why NEAR is an AI-optimized protocol', stating, "AI is the last wave of technological innovation."

Polosukhin explained, "AI is already replacing 'decision-making' rather than simple execution. This is a new phase of technological advancement," adding, "In the past, decisions were delegated to companies or governments amidst information overload, but now AI can perform all judgments on behalf of individuals."

He stated, "Ultimately, the core is 'who controls AI'. As AI makes more decisions, designing a user-centric AI ecosystem becomes important," and "NEAR aims to build AI optimized for user success through a user-centric AI model."

NEAR introduced a multi-layer protocol that includes ▲scalable blockchain structure ▲Chain Signature technology ▲Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) ▲AI governance system as the foundation to realize this. He revealed, "NEAR supports a block speed of 600 milliseconds per second, which is 10 times faster than Solana."

Polosukhin explained, "AI is now evolving into an 'acting agent' beyond simple information retrieval," and "In the NEAR ecosystem, AI can execute everything from travel bookings to asset management and shopping on behalf of users."

He stated, "NEAR's 'House of State' is designing a structure where AI participates in governance decision-making," adding, "AI will perform forum discussions, proposal reviews, and voting, reducing the burden on humans."

He continued, "Beyond single-chain performance, it also provides the function of sharding the smart contract itself," asserting, "It will be the only blockchain capable of running global apps for billions of users without any issues."

Technology for the security and transparency of AI computation was also announced. Polosukhin stated, "By utilizing 'Confidential Computing' implementable on new GPUs, AI computation can be performed in a state where no one can check the data," adding, "This enables AI computation that secures both privacy and performance."

Finally, Polosukhin added, "We dream of a collaborative Layer 1 ecosystem," stating, "In an era where AI is the frontend and blockchain is the backend, NEAR will be the only platform to realize the fusion of these two."