Acurast is building the future of decentralized cloud and confidential AI

Acurast is a decentralized, serverless cloud platform that transforms consumer hardware, primarily mobile phones, into secure compute nodes. By using the built-in security modules of mobile devices, Acurast forms a global network capable of handling sensitive workloads, including confidential AI processing. Users can repurpose their idle phone for verifiable compute tasks, offering a private and censorship-resistant alternative to traditional cloud services.

Challenge: Scaling a decentralized cloud infrastructure

The existing cloud computing market primarily relies on centralized providers, which can lead to higher operational costs and data sovereignty considerations. Acurast saw a disruptive opportunity to leverage the computing power of billions of consumer devices globally, offering a decentralized alternative to traditional cloud providers. However, achieving this vision required overcoming significant technical hurdles:

• Computations executed on distributed devices needed to remain tamper-proof and verifiable.
• Needed the ability to scale and support millions of transactions on a decentralized network while maintaining reliability and efficiency.
• Verifiable compute needed to be able to integrate seamlessly with onchain attestations.

Given these technical requirements and scale considerations, Acurast needed a blockchain network with established infrastructure, cross-chain compatibility, and robust security features.

Solution: Verifiable decentralized computing with the Polkadot SDK

When Acurast began exploring blockchain solutions for their platform, they recognized the need for verifiable computing, relying on attestations from hardware security modules to ensure that computations were trustworthy. The team needed a blockchain architecture that could support these complex attestation and orchestration tasks, which went beyond the capabilities of simple smart contracts. The Polkadot SDK provided the ideal framework, enabling the onchain verification of compute tasks, such as confidential AI workloads, across a decentralized network.

Additionally, Polkadot’s shared security removed the need for Acurast to set up an independent economic security framework, allowing the team to concentrate on scaling their platform without the added burden of separate staking systems. With Polkadot’s mature, interoperable infrastructure, Acurast was able to achieve a reliable, decentralized compute layer to enable its goal of transforming consumer devices into a scalable alternative to centralized cloud solutions.

Results and impact

Since integrating with Polkadot, Acurast has validated its decentralized cloud model on Kusama (Polkadot’s canary network), processing over 92 million transactions flawlessly. Community engagement also surged, with over 10,000 active accounts joining Acurast’s Cloud Rebellion program. Even with high transaction activity, Acurast operates at just 5% of Kusama’s block capacity, highlighting room for substantial scaling as demand increases.

What’s next

Acurast is gearing up for its Mainnet launch and token generation event (TGE) in the coming months, marking a significant step toward a fully operational decentralized cloud platform. Expanding device compatibility is also a priority, with upcoming support for iOS in addition to current Android Processors. Further developments include enhanced confidential AI capabilities and positioning Acurast to explore new use cases in decentralized AI computing. These advancements aim to open new opportunities for developers and expand the scope of Acurast’s decentralized infrastructure.