Highlights: 

  • Due to this announcement, Solana is now the first Layer 1 blockchain to incorporate AI capabilities.
  • The Solana Foundation also revealed that it would be expanding its AI-focused grants program from its initially announced USD 1 million to USD 10 million in addition to the ChatGPT plugin.

The Solana blockchain’s creator, Solana Labs, recently declared the availability of a ChatGPT plugin that combines its blockchain technology with AI and enables users to query data from the network.

The OpenAI LP chatbot ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence to respond to user questions in a friendly manner. In March, the business allowed developers to expand it with plugins, enabling the bot to pull data from outside sources.

Due to this announcement, Solana is now the first Layer 1 blockchain to incorporate AI capabilities. Users will be able to understand Solana data and protocols by querying information directly from the blockchain using the plugin’s conversational prompts. That aims to make it easier for amateurs, developers, and others to learn more about data, computing infrastructure, and decentralized finance projects.

Co-founder and Chief Executive of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko, said in an interview published on Solana’s website, “Every developer building consumer-oriented apps should be thinking about how their app is going to be interacted with through an AI model because this is a new paradigm for telling computers what to do.”

Yakovenko says using AI can make people almost feel as though they are speaking to a different person, which could drastically change how they perceive data. He added, “AI will make Solana more usable and understandable.”

Solana first hinted at the plugin in late April, saying it would be an open-source implementation enabling users to alter blockchain data. Users can buy transfer tokens, nonfungible tokens, examine transactions on the chain, look at account data, and view NFT prices through a direct connection to a Solana blockchain node.

A type of cryptocurrency asset based on blockchain technology known as nonfungible tokens offers provable ownership of digital goods like artwork and video game items. They can be bought, sold, or traded because they are cryptographic tokens. Similar to collectible trading cards, people frequently buy, sell, and trade NFTs as part of collections.

The AI can currently describe on-chain objects, such as whether they are part of an NFT set, but it will not automatically create NFT collections. The ability to write to the blockchain, according to Yakovenko, is a future objective, but the plugin is not yet available. The plugin’s most recent version is available for download from the GitHub repository for developers interested in trying it.

One of Solana’s blockchain-related claims to fame is that it is a fast, inexpensive blockchain that is simple to deploy and use NFTs on. Yakovenko hopes that by incorporating an AI interface, users will be able to communicate with and comprehend the network.

He said, “Right now, we’re in the stage of discovering what AI can do. I encourage devs to go write plugins for whatever software they are working on, interact with it, and discover what it can do. I don’t think anyone knows where it’s supposed to go. It’s just really, really cool that you can basically treat it like a ‘Star Trek’ computer.”

The Solana Foundation also revealed that it would be expanding its AI-focused grants program from its initially announced USD 1 million to USD 10 million in addition to the ChatGPT plugin. The intention is to motivate Solana developers to investigate potential AI and machine learning applications.