🖥 Startup Vana Will Pay You for Your Personal Data
Experts at the Epoch AI Institute predict that between 2026 and 2032, developers may run out of available data to train AI models.
Startup Vana offers an alternative: a decentralized platform where users share their personal data for AI training and receive compensation in the form of crypto tokens. The company has already raised $25 million in funding.
🖥 How Does It Work?
The Vana platform brings together dozens of special data pools where users can share their data. This data could include social media posts, browser data, IoT data in smart homes, biometrics from fitness trackers, and even genome sequences.
Vana has already announced the release of the Collective-1 AI model, featuring 7 billion parameters. This model leverages user data for training and utilizes the innovative Flower system, enabling users to contribute to the processing power of their devices to help with AI training.
Vana currently boasts over 1.3 million users, and the startup's goal is 100 million. This will allow it to collect 453 trillion tokens for AI training. For comparison, Llama-3 was trained on 15 trillion tokens, and Qwen3 on 36 trillion.
🖥 What Are The Benefits?
Ultimately, people could truly own the models, explains Vana co-founder Anna Kazlauskas. "Then you don't end up in a scenario where you don't have a single company controlling an all-powerful AI model. You get better technology, but everyone benefits," she says.
Are you willing to share your data for AI training?
👍 — yes, if I can earn money from it
🤔 — no, it sounds unreliable
