Who are located at $NEAR ?

NEAR, in my view, is a candidate to be the NVIDIA of artificial intelligence in crypto.
While NVIDIA is at the center of AI hardware, Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, is also one of the key figures in modern AI.
Polosukhin is one of the authors of the famous Transformer architecture paper, which underpins almost all advanced AI models today, including ChatGPT and Gemini.
This distinction sets NEAR apart from many other crypto projects, giving it direct intellectual depth and credibility in the AI field.
This analogy is no longer just an abstract comparison; NEAR AI, by joining NVIDIA's Inception program, has gained access to NVIDIA’s technical expertise and advanced GPU infrastructure to develop enterprise-level, verifiable, and privacy-focused AI infrastructures.
Additionally, Illia Polosukhin is one of the rare crypto leaders personally invited as a speaker at major NVIDIA conferences to discuss the intersection of AI and blockchain.
NVIDIA is the company that sells the infrastructure necessary for training AI models.
NEAR Protocol positions itself as a foundational infrastructure layer for Decentralized AI.
With the NEAR AI initiative, they aim to build a platform that preserves data privacy, ensures model verifiability, and allows AI agents to interact securely and economically with each other or with users.
If the criterion is to be at the heart of the AI craze, providing infrastructure/technology for this field, and having visionary leaders behind it who are shaping the future of AI, then my analogy of NEAR as the NVIDIA of crypto is one of the most grounded and logical comparisons in the market.
There is also a little-known relationship between NEAR and Zcash.
This relationship is based on a strategic partnership focused on seamless cross-chain access and data privacy.
By integrating Zcash into the NEAR Intents infrastructure, users can transfer over 100 assets directly into privacy-focused $ZEC pools with a single click on NEAR, without the need for complex bridge transactions.
NEAR, which places great importance on data privacy in its AI vision, is fueled by Zcash’s pioneering ZK technology, while Zcash expands its use cases by integrating into NEAR’s broad liquidity and user-friendly multi-chain ecosystem.
Furthermore, in the past year, NEAR has experienced one of its peak periods in active usage and on-chain data volume, thanks to AI integrations and multi-chain user experience improvements.
In summary, my friends, when the bull market arrives, NEAR should definitely be in your AI baskets.