Challenges of Solana and AI Ecosystem Layout

Many relationships in the world are like a seesaw. As the price of Ethereum recovers on its tenth anniversary, Solana is facing an even more difficult situation. Not only is the path of the "Ethereum killer" more tortuous, but it has also welcomed a group of its own "competitors."

However, a moderate sense of crisis is not a bad thing for project development. Solana, which has weathered storms, is even more adept at handling challenges. This article will introduce the recent major initiatives of Solana's official team and delve into the current status and future development of the Solana AI ecosystem.

1. Major Official Measures

1. Alpenglow Upgrade: Replaces SoH, Enhances Performance

Alpenglow is regarded as the most significant upgrade to the core Solana protocol to date, comparable in importance to Ethereum's transition from PoW to PoS consensus. Alpenglow aims to replace the existing PoH and Tower BFT consensus mechanisms.

The main purpose of this upgrade is to address performance issues under high load and the excessively high operating costs of nodes. Alpenglow has removed PoH and adopted Votor to combine node clocks for processing timing and confirmations, reducing the computational burden on leader nodes. Another core component, Rotor, optimizes block propagation and synchronization, shortening the confirmation time from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds.

The implementation of Alpenglow is expected to significantly lower the operational thresholds for validators and enhance the decentralization of the network. The ultimate goal is to achieve a faster, more stable, lower-cost, more scalable, and decentralized network, thereby re-establishing Solana's leading position in terms of performance.

2. ICM Roadmap: Optimize Trading, Build "On-Chain Nasdaq"

After the Alpenglow upgrade, Solana Labs, in collaboration with the core development teams within the ecosystem, released the "Network Capital Market" (ICM) roadmap.

The ICM roadmap aims to address the challenges posed by competitors such as the trading-specific chain Hyperliquid and further optimize the trading experience. The main measures include:

• The Alpenglow upgrade reduces transaction confirmation times to 150 milliseconds, approaching Visa-level processing capabilities.
• Introduce the ACE mechanism to give dApps more autonomy.
• Improve the MEV protection mechanism to provide a better trading environment for market makers and users.

The long-term goal of Solana is to create a true "on-chain Nasdaq" that helps companies bypass the complex IPO process and raise funds directly on the chain. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko stated that he hopes to achieve the on-chain representation of traditional financial assets within a year and provide entrepreneurs with a compliant, open-source on-chain IPO avenue within five years.

2. AI Ecosystem Development Under Multiple Challenges

Faced with the competition from emerging public chains like Hyperliquid and Sui, as well as the reality of Ethereum's return to the throne, Solana feels immense pressure and has to accelerate its upgrades to turn the situation around.

In the field of AI, Solana also faces severe challenges. As the craze for DePIN and AI Agents wanes, the Virtuals ecosystem is rising on the Base chain, while the BNB Chain has diverted a significant amount of AI MEME attention through celebrity effects. At the same time, emerging DeAI infrastructures like Bittensor are forming a new competitive landscape.

Nevertheless, Solana, having gone through multiple challenges, still shows a pragmatic attitude, clearly benchmarking against its competitors and working to address its shortcomings. Next, let's review the development history of Solana's AI ecosystem and assess its future prospects.

3. The AI Landscape of Solana

The development of AI projects on Solana can be roughly divided into three stages:

Phase 1: Early DePIN ecosystem explosion, DeAI budding

The representative projects of this stage include:

• AI computing power networks: Render, io.net, Aethir, etc.
• Decentralized data/bandwidth networks: Grass, Helium, Roam, Gradient Network

These projects have actively explored the infrastructure field where blockchain meets AI, bringing immense imagination to the market and opening a new chapter for DeAI.

Phase 2: AI Agent Blooming

With the significant improvement of LLM capabilities, AI Agent applications are rapidly developing on Solana. Representative projects include:

• Wayfinder: AI Agent that simplifies cross-chain operations
• ElizaOS: Open Source AI Agent Framework
• Holoworld: Multi-modal AI Agent Launch Platform
• Moby AI: An AI Agent focused on Alpha mining on the Solana chain.
• Hey Anon: Natural Language-Based DeFi Operations Assistant

In addition, there are many AI agents and application projects such as ARC, SWARMS, GRIFFAIN, BUZZ, HAT, PIPPIN, ZEREBRO, etc.

Phase 3: Rational Return, Deepening DeAI Infrastructure

After the market returned to rationality, a number of new projects began to more solidly build decentralized AI infrastructure on Solana.

• Nous Research: dedicated to decentralized training of open-source AI large models
• Arcium: A privacy computing platform based on MPC and ZKP technologies
• Neutral Trade: AI-driven quantitative trading platform

The project quality at this stage has明显提升, with a greater emphasis on practical implementation and solving real problems.

4. Advantages and Prospects of the Solana AI Ecosystem

Although the current enthusiasm for on-chain AI has become somewhat dispersed, it is difficult for the AI field to form a situation where one company dominates in the long run. Solana still has the following advantages in the AI field:

1. High performance at low cost: After the Alpenglow upgrade, the confirmation time will be reduced to 150 milliseconds, better supporting real-time AI applications.

2. Good liquidity: A mature DeFi ecosystem provides stable financial support for AI projects.

3. Smart Contract Support: SVM can efficiently handle complex logic, suitable for on-chain execution requirements of AI tasks.

4. Degree of Decentralization: The number of nodes far exceeds that of most performance chains, and the Alpenglow upgrade is expected to further enhance this.

5. Ecological Interconnection: A complete and diverse ecosystem facilitates cross-domain collaboration for AI projects.

The arrival of the Alpenglow upgrade is highly anticipated. However, whether Solana can leverage these advantages to compete with more rivals in the narratives of "on-chain Nasdaq" and AI remains to be seen.