What Is Sahara? Sahara AI Mainnet Set to Launch in Q3
In the traditional AI development model, data contributors and developers have long been in a state of imbalanced value distribution—humans provide data to train models but receive very little in return; developers create intelligent assets but struggle with rights confirmation and circulation. The emergence of Sahara AI is precisely to reconstruct this production relationship.
As the world’s first AI-native full stack Web3 Since the launch of the testnet in 2024, the Sahara platform has attracted 3.2 million on-chain accounts and 1.4 million daily active users participating in data labeling, model development, and asset minting, and has established ecosystem partnerships with over 40 top institutions, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Cloud.
Vision Positioning: Build the “Web3 Operating System” in the AI Era
Sahara AI’s positioning goes far beyond a single tool or market; it aims to become the full-link infrastructure supporting a decentralized AI economy. Its core mission is to address the threefold dilemma of “unclear rights confirmation, imbalanced distribution, and inefficient circulation” in AI development.
Unlike most projects that add a Web3 layer to existing AI tools, Sahara reconstructs the ownership rules of smart assets from the protocol layer. In its design, data, models, and agents can all be registered as on-chain assets, enabling verifiable rights confirmation, permission management, and profit-sharing mechanisms.
“Sahara is not just another blockchain project; it is a call for systematic reflection and collective action,” emphasized co-founder and CEO Sean Ren. “We have achieved real revenue and are returning value directly to contributors.”
In August 2024, the project secured $43 million in funding led by Binance Labs and Pantera Capital, with a total subsequent funding amount reaching $51.5 million, providing ample ammunition for the technology’s implementation.
Technical Architecture and Product Ecosystem: A Closed-Loop System from Data to Model
The architecture of Sahara is divided into two layers: a self-developed EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain responsible for asset registration and transaction settlement; an off-chain AI execution protocol generates verifiable execution proofs through a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), ensuring transparency in the process.
This architecture supports four core products that cover the entire lifecycle of AI:
- Data Service Platform (DSP): Users contribute through data annotation to earn on-chain incentives. The task volume in the second quarter reached 2.55 million entries, with accuracy improved to 95%, and introduced a “demigod level” soul-bound token (SBT) mechanism to incentivize quality contributors.
- AI Developer Platform (Sahara Studio): Launching in Q2 2025, it integrates model training, deployment, and workflow management tools, significantly lowering the development threshold.
- AI Trading Marketplace: Scheduled to launch in Q3/Q4 2025, supporting decentralized trading and licensing of datasets, models, and agents, activating asset circulation.
- Knowledge Intelligent Agents (KAs): Deployable autonomous AI applications that form ecological terminal outlets.
Latest Update: Mainnet Countdown and Token Launch
According to the roadmap released by Sahara AI for 2024 - 2025, its key milestones clearly point to the Mainnet launch:
- Q4 2024: Launch the testnet and data service platform, initiate the user reward program.
- Q1 2025: Launch of AI Marketplace Early Access
- Q2 2025: Launch of Sahara Studio Toolkit
- Q3 2025: Sahara Chain Mainnet launch, supporting data and model asset trading.
On May 19, 2025, Sahara launched the public test network SIWA, which opened the dataset registration and ownership certificate minting function for the first time, marking the entry of its on-chain confirmation system into the public verification phase.
On the token level, SAHARA will be listed on multiple exchanges on June 26, 2025.
This community sale was oversubscribed by nearly 9 times, with an initial fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $600 million, reflecting strong market confidence in the project.
User Data and Ecosystem Cooperation: Testnet Validation Growth Flywheel
The SIWA testnet data corroborates Sahara’s growth potential:
- The total number of accounts has exceeded 3.2 million, with daily active users surpassing 1.4 million.
- The number of data annotation participants has exceeded 200,000, with the task completion volume reaching 2.55 million in the second quarter.
- Data accuracy has improved from 92% in the first quarter to 95% in the second quarter.
Ecological cooperation is expanding synchronously, with the introduction of over 40 partners including AWS, Google Cloud, UC Berkeley, and Together AI, covering the fields of cloud computing, open source protocols, and academic research. This forms a technological synergy network with previous partners like Microsoft, Amazon, and MIT.
Future Significance: The Starting Point of the De-AI Era
The ultimate goal of Sahara is to become the underlying operating system that integrates AI and Web3. Its value is not only reflected in the improvement of tool efficiency but also in establishing a closed-loop economic model of contributor rights confirmation → asset circulation → developer innovation → user benefits.
If the Mainnet is launched on schedule in Q3 2025 and is fully functional, Sahara will address three core issues:
- Data contributors will receive verifiable rewards.
- Model developers will have assetized intellectual property rights.
- Enterprises will access a compliant and transparent AI supply chain.
“We are ushering in a more open, fair, and sustainable era of AI collaboration,” said Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash, “This will become the new infrastructure for Web3 AI.”
With the launch of the Sahara Chain Mainnet in the third quarter of 2025, global developers will have access to a full-stack AI development and assetization platform for the first time. Data labelers, model trainers, and agent developers—each participant can rely on on-chain protocols to achieve contribution rights confirmation and value returns.
While the traditional AI economy is still monopolized by tech giants, Sahara is building a decentralized highway from data to models. On this road, contributions are rights, intelligence is an asset, and collaboration brings profit.
