Filecoin Foundation Quarterly Update: April, 2025

How Filecoin is Shaping the Future of AI

As the AI industry rapidly expands –– now valued at $9 trillion according to the 2024 State of AI Report –– Filecoin’s decentralized storage network offers an open source alternative for data storage. Yet, today’s internet landscape is dominated by centralization, with a handful of corporations controlling the majority of global cloud data. This concentration of power leaves the web fragile, exposing information to single points of failure prone to outages, blackouts, and takedowns.

The challenges of centralization extend to AI agents –– autonomous systems reshaping how we engage with technology. While designed to make independent decisions based on large-scale datasets and continuously evolve through new interactions, most AI systems today operate within opaque, centralized infrastructures. AI training data is often proprietary and inaccessible, making it difficult to verify how models consume information in their reasoning process to generate insights — fundamentally limiting AI’s transparency, verifiability, and innovative potential.

The Filecoin network is uniquely positioned to address these challenges by enabling decentralization and transparency. Key advantages include:

Creating an auditable and tamper-proof way for AI projects to verify their models, datasets, and computations;
Offering a compelling alternative to these centralized models through decentralized, transparent data storage; and
Fostering trust while reinforcing the resilience of our digital infrastructure.

In this quarterly update, we will spotlight how the Filecoin network is forming the backbone for not only a better version of the web, but a better foundation for emerging technologies like AI.

AI Agents Leveraging Filecoin’s Infrastructure

Data storage is what powers the internet to function and underpins the credibility and integrity of AI systems. Several AI agent projects are already incorporating Filecoin’s decentralized storage:

Recall is building a reputation system for AI agents to ensure they operate on high-integrity, verifiable data. As a foundational intelligence layer, Recall enables agents to prove, monetize, and exchange knowledge in a decentralized, trustless way. Beyond verification, Recall serves as a multi-agent marketplace, allowing AI agents to trade knowledge and skills, reduce redundancy, and accelerate collective intelligence. Imagine a meal planning agent that could source dietary adjustments from a diabetes management agent, ensuring customized recommendations. Built as an Interplanetary Consensus (IPC) subnet, Recall plans to store agent data on Filecoin.

Theoriq is a protocol that facilitates the coordination of and communication between AI agents. Theoriq and Filecoin Foundation are working to develop a series of AI agents trained on data from the Filecoin network, making open data more accessible and usable to developers and researchers. A Filecoin AI agent trained on the Filecoin docs and GitHub repositories allows users to get answers through natural language queries on how to build on Filecoin, troubleshoot common issues, get started as a storage provider, and more.

Ungate AI is a platform that facilitates AI agent-to-agent communication, leveraging Filecoin and Eigenlayer to build a trust layer for AI in order to avoid hidden human override or external manipulation occurring without detection. Ungate relies on Filecoin’s decentralized storage to store metadata, ensuring AI agent execution proofs are immutably recorded and permanently accessible.

AIWS is creating a modular network for generating and managing autonomous AI agents fully integrated with decentralized storage and compute stacks. All AI agent metadata, prompts, and data are preserved on Filecoin.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, the demand for personal agency over AI systems will grow exponentially. Users — both individuals and organizations — will seek AI agents that align with their specific needs while respecting data sovereignty.

Building the Next Generation of AI Systems

For developers building the next generation of AI agents, Filecoin's infrastructure offers a critical competitive advantage. In a market where users are increasingly concerned about data privacy and trustworthiness, systems built on verifiable foundations will command premium positioning.

Filecoin builders are shaping the future of AI and other emerging technologies at in-person workshops like Code N' Corgi, a developer-driven series designed for builders in the Filecoin ecosystem, and through various hackathons. By providing essential infrastructure for building AI that's not just smart but transparent, accountable, and trustworthy, too, Filecoin is establishing the foundation for AI systems that will truly thrive in the long term.

More Highlights from Across the Ecosystem

Key Moments

The Defiant is now safeguarding its entire article archive and future content on Filecoin. With storage facilitated by Akave, and support from FF, this move ensures this leading crypto media outlet’s journalism remains immutable, verifiable, and accessible, protecting against link rot and content loss.

Flickr Foundation, Internet Archive, and Other Leading Organizations Leverage Filecoin to Safeguard Cultural Heritage. Over 500,000 culturally significant digital artifacts from renowned institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, Flickr Foundation, Internet Archive, MIT Open Learning, and Starling Lab, are stored on the Filecoin network. Through their preservation, Filecoin is redefining data preservation in an age where integrity, provenance, and robustness of information are more critical than ever.

Blockfrost and Filecoin Foundation Collaborate to Enhance the Decentralization of Cardano Data. Blockfrost and Filecoin Foundation are collaborating to integrate Filecoin’s decentralized storage capabilities as a robust backup layer for Cardano apps built with Blockfrost. This collaboration will enhance the data redundancy, quality assurance, and decentralization of Cardano apps.

Developer Grants: Fueling Decentralized Innovation

FF’s Developer Grants Updates bring news and highlights from the FF Developer Grants team. The second issue, published in February, explores how FF continues to support new, impactful projects and introduce program updates to empower more developers in the Filecoin ecosystem. A few proposals that we recently funded include:

Eastore: An onchain way of storing small files on Filecoin, as an alternative to traditional centralized file storage protocols.
UCAN development support: A project supporting the development of multiple User Controlled Authorization Network (UCAN) functionalities, including v1 JS UCAN implementation, debugger, and other developer tooling and resources for ecosystem projects using UCANs.
IPNI Reverse Index: This project will help assess the quality of Filecoin retrieval services and drive improvements.

For a more comprehensive look at developer projects we have funded in the past, check out Filecoin Foundation’s 2024 Annual Report.

New Grant Opportunity: FIL Builder Next Step Grants

FF is working alongside FIL-B to provide FIL Builder Next Step Grants valued between $5,000 and $10,000. These grants support builders working on an onchain Filecoin project that incorporates the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) or proof of concept to take their active Filecoin projects to the next level. This opportunity runs through the end of April.

Focus Areas and Outlook

FF continues to award grants valued at up to $50,000 for projects that align with developer and data tooling, integrations, research and protocols, storage, retrieval, and FVM. If you have a project in mind that improves or advances the Filecoin network, we encourage you to apply for a grant! Make sure to check out our grant criteria to inform your proposals.

Storage Community: The Backbone of the Filecoin Network

Driving Growth

FF's Storage and Community team continues to help share business strategies on how to drive demand, create additional revenue streams for storage providers (SP), and solidify Filecoin's market positioning as part of its ongoing mission to help the network achieve product-market fit (PMF). Alongside FilOz and other key ecosystem builders, founders, and business development leaders, FF is supporting discussions outlining Filecoin’s value proposition and how it can align with market needs.

Activating the Global Storage Community

On January 27, 2025, Filecoin Foundation and MetaEra hosted FF’s second AMA, focusing on “APAC Builder Opportunities” and drawing over 24,000 listeners on X Spaces. During the session, FF shared important updates on gas changes, providing valuable context for ongoing network developments. Representatives from Secured Finance, FIL-B, Titan Network, Zetablock, and Storswift joined the call to offer insightful perspectives on key opportunities in the data marketplace, AI agents, stablecoins, and cross-chain collaboration. This AMA reinforced FF’s commitment to empowering APAC builders and fostering innovation across the ecosystem.

On March 5, 2025, we hosted an online discussion with the Storage Provider Working Group (SPWG), FilOz, and FF regarding FIP-100. We gathered key concerns and feedback from APAC SPs, ensuring their perspectives were well represented in the discussion. FilOz and FF provided support, offering clear explanations and actively adjusting the FIP to better align with SP needs.

Governance: A Foundation for Decentralized Decision-Making

Building a More Flexible, Adaptable Network

The NV24 upgrade combined crucial improvements in network security, performance, and developer functionality, continuing Filecoin's mission to provide a robust and decentralized storage solution to preserve humanity's most important information. The NV25 "Teep" upgrade introduced improvements that make Filecoin more efficient and adaptable, simplifying storage provider economics and enhancing developer tooling to make the network more flexible, adaptable, and dynamic for builders, storage providers, and storage clients. Together, these enhancements are the latest steps in bolstering the network's storage capabilities and establishing Filecoin as a leading platform in the decentralized web as well as a broader distribution layer for decentralized services.

Fast Finality

Fast Finality in Filecoin (F3) will speed up finality on the network by up to 450X, making the future of Filecoin fast, secure, and accessible to a wider range of applications. The network will introduce a new component called GossiPBFT, which works alongside the existing system to rapidly finalize transactions and allows Filecoin to improve its usability across a wider variety of applications while opening the door for new use cases. Fast Finality will be activated following its mainnet parameters that were implemented in the NV25 Upgrade. For more information about F3’s development, read FilOz's series: The F3 Journey.

Milestone: 100 Filecoin Improvement Proposals

The Filecoin community has reached a milestone — 100 Filecoin Improvement Proposals have been considered to date. Through the Filecoin Improvement Proposal (FIP) process, FF aims to facilitate a decentralized, innovative, and transparent system to support community decision-making and collective ownership of the Filecoin technology. However you choose to participate in Filecoin governance, we hope you will get involved. By joining ongoing governance discussions, reviewing FIPs, and staying connected with the latest developments through the fil-gov Slack channel you're helping shape the future of the Filecoin network.

Filecoin Plus: Scaling Utilization of the Filecoin Network

Introducing the Filecoin Plus FDS-5 Recap and 2025 Priorities. Dive deeper into the discussions around Filecoin Plus at FIL Dev Summit and explore the 2025 program roadmap, where scalability, diligence, and user experience make up this year’s key priorities.

Discover how FIDL is Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in Fil+. Filecoin Incentive Design Lab (FIDL) is a team in the Filecoin ecosystem focused on providing insights that help clients, storage providers, and allocators make informed decisions about how they engage with Fil+.

Announcing the Experimental Pathway Metaallocator (EPMA). This proposal introduces 1PiB of testable DataCap within the Fil+ program, designed for allocators that seek to experiment with novel approaches to making DataCap allocations. For information on how to apply to develop a pathway, read the FIDL blog.

Events: Building the Global Filecoin Community

Filecoin Community @ETHDenver

On the ground in Denver, 11 teams from the Filecoin ecosystem shared their progress with builders. Code N' Corgi welcomed 80 attendees to learn with experienced Filecoin builders.

Orbit Hong Kong

Filecoin Foundation and ND Labs hosted a Happy Hour during HK Consensus, bringing together industry leaders, AI projects, and community members for an evening of networking and collaboration. The event provided a valuable opportunity to connect with key stakeholders, exchange insights, and explore potential partnerships, further strengthening the Filecoin ecosystem in the APAC region.