Sandeep Chinchali: "We will surpass Scale AI… Transparent data collection is our strength"

Sandeep Chinchali, Story CAIO

Integration of Blockchain and AI Data Market

"Targeting Demand for Physical AI Data"

Sandeep Chinchali (pictured), Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO) at Story—a blockchain-based intellectual property (IP) platform—was researching robotics and deep learning as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin just four months ago. His meeting with Seungyoon Lee, CEO of Story, last April was nearly coincidental. A friend of his cousin who works at Story had requested him to give a lecture on AI.

When Chinchali CAIO met CEO Lee, he proposed 'Project Poseidon,' turning the blockchain platform into a training-data market for AI, and was immediately recruited. Three months later, Poseidon secured a $15 million (around ₩2.07 billion) investment from a16z Crypto, the cryptocurrency division of Andreessen Horowitz. Chinchali CAIO confidently stated, “Most next-generation AI foundation models will utilize the data collected by Poseidon.”

On the 5th, Chinchali CAIO pointed out, “Competition in computing power and AI model architecture concluded quickly, but there’s still no definitive winner in the data market.” Among startups like Labelbox and Snorkel AI, Scale AI has stood out, but it has faced 'illegal labor' allegations. Chinchali CAIO asserted, “We believe in the power of transparent data,” adding, “Looking more broadly, an economic model based on cryptocurrency is possible.”

Another success factor Chinchali highlights for the Poseidon platform is the demand for 'physical AI' data. He explained, “The AI we focus on operates on content that cannot be scraped (automatically extracted from websites).” Videos and photos used in robot foundation models, and audio files used for voice AI, are hard to gather from the internet without authorization. Chinchali CAIO stated, “This data can also be collected from iPhone or GoPro devices, autonomous vehicles, and heart rate sensors.”

To address this, Story is considering two business models. One is to build a platform for collecting and trading data via mobile devices and similar sources. The other is to cooperate with companies that hold valuable data but have yet to monetize it. Citing TaskRabbit as an example, Chinchali CAIO said, “If there are companies that provide office cleaning services, they could equip cleaners with GoPros or smart glasses to collect data and generate revenue from it.”

Silicon Valley = Inyeob Kim, Correspondent inside@hankyung.com