By Gaurav Sharma, CEO of io.net By Gaurav Sharma, CEO of Gaurav Sharma, CEO of io.net io.net io.net Compute power is the backbone of modern innovation, yet it is perpetually in short supply. Centralized cloud infrastructure from providers like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud is struggling to meet the demands of global projects. However, it’s not just capacity where these companies fall short - they are not cost-efficient for many businesses and because they are centralized they are never truly resistant from corporate and governmental censorship. These challenges have led to the rise of Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), alternative models for accessing and deploying compute power that offer greater flexibility, reduced costs and censorship resistance for projects and enterprises worldwide. A New Compute Paradigm The DePIN category can be split into two primary network types: Physical Resource Networks (PRNs) and Digital Resource Networks (DRNs). It is the latter we will focus on, encompassing all forms of computing hardware including storage, bandwidth GPUs and CPUs - a market that is expected to surpass $32 billion annually by the end of 2025. By aggregating all this physical infrastructure into a unified global pool maintained by independent operators, DRNs are transforming how developers access compute, making it more accessible, more affordable and more resilient. $32 billion annually by the end of 2025 Many assume DePINs are simply marketplaces for spare capacity. While DePINs facilitate access to computing, this view overlooks the breadth of its value proposition. DePINs unlock programmable infrastructure within a decentralised ecosystem, enabling developers to orchestrate workloads in ways traditional cloud structures can’t easily replicate. Another misconception is that the nuance and agility of decentralisation might compromise performance. In reality, many DePINs now deliver competitive benchmarks across latency, concurrency and throughput. Techniques such as smart workload routing, mesh networking and tokenised incentives for high availability not only help maintain performance but also optimise it dynamically based on workload needs. DePINs redefine infrastructure, not as fixed capacity, but as fluid coordination, providing developers with tools to build systems that are cheaper, faster and more resilient than ever before. As Good As Traditional Cloud and Better Today, more than 13 million devices contribute to DePINs. This allows developers to tap into a spectrum of hardware, ranging from high-performance cloud-grade GPUs to specialised edge devices. 13 million devices The owners of these devices earn compensation when their compute power is reserved by developers for model training, inference, video generation and any other compute-intensive tasks. DePINs add nuance and agility to infrastructure management by delivering transparent, hardware-specific orchestration of workloads across location-aware devices - all without requiring specialised knowledge or training. If you know how to use cloud compute, you can use DePIN. These unique advantages, explored in the following paragraphs, make them a strong alternative for organising global compute, addressing latency issues, sovereignty, sustainability and avoiding rising costs. Elastic Global Scheduling Without Vendor Lock-In One of the most transformative capabilities of DePINs is elastic scheduling, a clear contrast to centralised platforms, which are constrained by rigid pricing tiers and limited regional zones. DePINs let developers launch workloads across GPUs, CPUs and storage nodes without time limits, enabling composable, permissionless and coordinated scheduling via smart contracts and token incentives. Using decentralised compute, developers can spin up workloads across a network of heterogeneous providers without being locked into proprietary APIs or contracts, unlocking true market-driven pricing and operational autonomy. Combining this with the fact that DePINs operate on a metered usage basis, with developers typically purchasing units of compute capacity that can be redeemed at any point, compute users are securing cost savings of up to 75% whilst also enhancing their resilience due to the distributed nature of the architecture. Latency-Aware Infrastructure Latency-Aware Infrastructure In contrast to traditional cloud zones, DePINs dynamically route compute based on latency, cost and hardware specificity, offering programmable infrastructure in which developers can actively toggle between latency-optimised and cost-optimised deployments. Whether routing real-time workloads to edge nodes or batch jobs to idle hardware, the orchestration layer prioritises proximity, responsiveness and performance continuity without compromising scale. Sovereign-First Compute Infrastructure By enabling sovereign deployments across a globally distributed edge footprint, DePINs unlock compliance-aware infrastructure. This facilitates GDPR, PCI DSS and region-specific data residency compliance while simultaneously avoiding the premium pricing typically associated with such provisions from centralised providers. Edge deployments further strengthen sovereignty by routing data through local nodes with programmable failover, minimising single points of failure and enhancing trust across the network. Further, centralised providers may impose limitations based on sanctions, identity verification or content policies whereas DePINs enforce cryptographic rules through decentralised protocol participants. This design ensures neutrality, censorship resistance and operational resilience, making it ideal for developers building sovereign applications or operating in environments vulnerable to access restrictions. Tokenised Incentives Driving Smarter, Greener Compute Networks Tokenised Incentives Driving Smarter, Greener Compute Networks DePINs have built a microeconomic framework that harmonises economic efficiency with ecological responsibility. By turning incentives into tokens, DePINs enable infrastructure operators and job schedulers to work better together, fixing a problem that older computing networks struggled to address. This creates a flywheel effect: as more nodes join, network flexibility increases, driving competitive job pricing and expanding opportunities for participants, from individual operators to enterprise fleets. Economic Coordination Meets Sustainable Infrastructure DePINs substantially mitigate the environmental impact of compute by harnessing underutilized resources, such as dormant GPUs, extending the life of older GPUs, and facilitating the synchronization of workloads with renewable energy generation. This innovative approach allows for a more sustainable and efficient use of infrastructure without compromising performance and reliability, empowering enterprises to meet their environmental objectives. DePINs’ future DePINs’ future The AI-native era will require infrastructure capable of evolving as quickly as the technology it supports. A centralized cloud, constrained by rigid controls, opaque pricing and vulnerability to external influence, will find it increasingly difficult to meet the demands of complex models and dynamic workloads. Early adopters of decentralised networks will gain a clear advantage, operating with greater autonomy, scaling effortlessly and sidestepping the limitations imposed by traditional providers. DePINs represent a complete reimagining of how global compute infrastructure is conceived and operated. As adoption grows, the most innovative organisations will be drawn to open platforms that deliver resilience, neutrality and the capacity to adapt in real time. Now is the time to explore, contribute and help shape a decentralised infrastructure that will power the next generation of innovation. *** Press Contact: Press Contact: Georgia Hanias and Ed Doljanin press@ecologymedia.co.uk press@ecologymedia.co.uk +447591559007 About io.net: About io.net io.net : With the world’s largest network of distributed GPUs and high-performance, on-demand compute, io.net is the only platform developers and organizations need to train models, run agents and scale LLM infrastructure. Combining the cost-effective and builder-friendly programmable infrastructure of io.cloud with the unified and API-accessible toolkit of io.intelligence, io.net is the full stack for large-scale AI startups.
