How Sogni and Salad Plan to Decentralize AI Processing Power
As generative AI models become more complex and demanding, the question of how to power them efficiently and affordably becomes increasingly urgent. Sogni AI, a decentralized platform for creative AI tools, has announced a strategic partnership with Salad Technologies, a distributed GPU provider. The collaboration opens a new front in the race to build accessible, decentralized AI infrastructure.
The partnership allows GPU owners and renters to contribute to Sogni’s “Supernet,” a decentralized computing network currently in testnet. By integrating with Salad’s infrastructure, Sogni can now tap into more than 60,000 GPUs through plug-and-play “Recipes.” These Recipes automatically deploy Sogni’s AI workloads, including its Stable Diffusion and Flux Worker models, letting users start earning Sogni tokens immediately after setup.
What Is the Supernet and How Does It Work?
Sogni’s Supernet operates as a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), enabling users around the world to contribute computing resources for generative AI tasks. At its core, the Supernet distributes AI jobs—such as generating images or art—to connected GPU nodes, which then perform the work and are rewarded with $SOGNI tokens.
Currently in its testnet phase, the Supernet is preparing for a full-scale mainnet launch. Fast Worker nodes, typically running on high-end GPUs like the Nvidia RTX 4090, are estimated to earn around $350 per month. This payout is notable when compared to other GPU rental or staking opportunities in both Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. The network already processes more than 1.5 million generations daily using over 100 image generation models.
How Does Salad Fit Into This Model?
Salad Technologies provides an on-demand, decentralized GPU network that enables anyone with a Salad account to rent GPU time at scale. The new integration with Sogni simplifies the onboarding process for contributors. Users can select a Recipe, such as the Sogni Stable Diffusion Worker, and immediately start processing jobs on the Supernet. All necessary models and configurations are pre-loaded, minimizing setup time.
Mark Ledford, CTO of Sogni AI, explained the benefit clearly.
“Salad is the easiest on-ramp yet for contributors looking to support creative AI. Even if you don’t own a $4,000 workstation, you can rent time on Salad and begin earning as part of our network.”
The integration also enables dynamic scaling. If demand on the Supernet increases, users can spin up more Salad nodes to match that demand. In performance, Salad nodes are nearly indistinguishable from hardware owned and run by users directly.
What’s at Stake for the AI and Web3 Communities?
The broader implication of this partnership lies in its attempt to democratize access to compute infrastructure. High-performance GPUs are expensive and often centralized in large data centers or controlled by a few cloud providers. By enabling individuals to contribute or rent GPU power through Salad, Sogni is distributing both the workload and the rewards.
Bob Miles, CEO of Salad Technologies, said,
“Our distributed GPU network is built to support the scale, speed, and efficiency modern AI startups like Sogni need to grow fast. Its mission of fuelling collective creativity aligns perfectly with Salad’s mission of democratizing compute.”
By leveraging consumer hardware and idle GPU capacity, both companies are working toward an ecosystem that reduces reliance on centralized infrastructure. This is especially relevant for the creative AI community, where artists and developers often operate outside of institutional frameworks.
Where Is This Going Next?
With $2 million in new funding and a user base that has grown from 10,000 to 340,000 during testnet, Sogni is expanding into AI video workloads on the Supernet. This next phase would bring significantly heavier computational requirements, making the Salad integration even more critical.
Mauvis Ledford, also CTO of Sogni, emphasized the direction:
“The Sogni Supernet is designed to be a network of networks. We’re proud to have Salad as one of the backbones of our supernetwork where gamers, artists, and creators across the globe share resources and earn together.”
As the generative AI ecosystem continues to evolve, decentralized infrastructure may offer a counterbalance to the concentration of compute power. Whether or not the model is sustainable in the long term will depend on continued token incentives, platform stability, and hardware participation from global users.
My Take
This partnership is a reflection of two concurrent trends: the explosion of generative AI and the rising relevance of decentralized physical infrastructure networks. By merging these concepts, Sogni and Salad are offering a model that reduces barriers for contributors while distributing both value and control.
However, the reliance on token incentives and speculative returns may also raise questions around sustainability in a long run. That said, using idle hardware to support open-source AI creation feels like a use case with real traction. The shift from hype to utility in Web3 will depend on how well such collaborations perform under real-world conditions and market adoption. With the team using token incentives it can test and create that initial traction to prove the market fit of such a solution to miners.
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Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our
