I noticed that the name Ilya Polosukhin is appearing more and more often in discussions about how blockchain and AI intertwine in modern technologies. This guy is one of those rare specialists who has truly left a mark both in the field of artificial intelligence and in the crypto industry.

Polosukhin is a graduate of MIPT, a computer science expert. He worked for seven years at Google, where he participated in the development of TensorFlow. For those who are not in the know: TensorFlow is a tool that has become the standard for researchers and developers in machine learning. In fact, it is one of those libraries that underpin half of the modern AI landscape.

But the most interesting part began when Ilya Polosukhin decided to move into blockchain and became a co-founder of NEAR Protocol. Here, he focused on creating a truly scalable and user-friendly platform. NEAR was launched in 2020 as an attempt to solve the industry’s persistent problems: high fees, development complexity, poor UX.

Under his leadership, the protocol developed quite dynamically. In 2021, Aurora was introduced — a solution for scaling Ethereum based on NEAR (Layer-2). The idea was to make blockchain development more accessible, enabling the creation of DeFi applications and decentralized services without requiring deep immersion into complex mechanics.

What impresses me about Polosukhin’s approach is his focus on user experience. He didn’t just create another protocol; he tried to break the stereotype that blockchain is difficult and inaccessible. This philosophy has gradually become a standard in the industry.

Ilya Polosukhin’s contribution to the industry is not only specific projects but also demonstrating how experience from traditional technologies can be combined with innovations in the crypto space. TensorFlow showed how open tools can transform an entire field, and NEAR proved that blockchain can be a convenient tool rather than just an experimental technology.

Currently, NEAR continues to develop, focusing on improving scalability and accessibility. It’s interesting to see how projects inspired by Polosukhin’s approach are beginning to appear throughout the crypto industry. It seems his ideas about technology being user-oriented rather than expert-oriented truly resonate with the direction in which the industry is moving.