A decentralized network dedicated to privacy AI

Pavel Durov, co-founder of messaging application Telegram, has revealed a new decentralized AI network that will be built on top of the open network (TON), an independent layer-1 blockchain associated with Telegram.

Durov took the stage at the Blockchain Life 2025 Forum in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at express The Confidential Compute Open Network, or Cocoon, was created to give users access to AI-driven features without sacrificing data privacy with centralized AI providers.

According to Durov, users can make processing power from their graphics processing units (GPU) available on the network, in exchange for receiving toncoin (Tons), the native token of the ton. Durov also touched on why decentralized AI is necessary for human freedom:

“Why is it important to do something this way as opposed to the centralized way that is sometimes more convenient? It’s important, my friends, because the world is moving in a different direction. In the last 20 years. We’re slowly losing our digital freedoms.”

AI models are decentralized has become a widely discussed topic among AI and blockchain developers due to privacy risks and the potential for centralized service providers to censor or distort critical information in real time, without users realizing it.

Related: Telegram’s Durov: We’re ‘Running Out of Time to Save the Free Internet’

AI’s centralized vulnerabilities illustrate blockchain’s potential

The centralization of artificial intelligence poses risks to the privacy of user data, including the risk of data breaches and hacks, according to some Crypto and Web3 industry executives.

Storing vast amounts of user data on centralized servers creates data Attractive target for hackersDavid Holtzman, chief strategy officer of the Naoris decentralized security protocol, told Cointelegraph.