At DePIN Day Singapore, Clara Tsao, Founding Officer of the Filecoin Foundation, reminded the audience that the decentralized infrastructure movement didn’t begin with compute or bandwidth — it began with storage.
Today, more than 200 companies and startups are building on the Filecoin Network, using thousands of independently operated data centers that range from small local facilities to enterprise-scale operations.
From personal photos to mission-critical archives, Filecoin aims to make decentralized storage a mainstream utility.
First Whitepaper to the Web3 Infrastructure Stack
Filecoin’s story predates most of the modern Web3 world.
The original white paper, written in 2014 by Juan Benet (Protocol Labs), envisioned a global marketplace for data storage — at a time when crypto was still largely synonymous with payments and currency.
“Back then, the conversation was just about money — Bitcoin and Ethereum,” Tsao recalled.
“There wasn’t much thinking about the infrastructure layer itself.”
A decade later, Filecoin stands as one of the earliest and most mature DePIN networks — the foundational layer for decentralized infrastructure that now includes compute, bandwidth, sensors, and beyond.
The DePIN Explosion and the Return of Infrastructure
Tsao highlighted how the DePIN ecosystem has grown from a handful of projects to over 2,000 globally in just five years.
What’s driving this surge, she said, is not speculation — it’s a collective realization that true decentralization starts with physical infrastructure. Traditional industries are waking up to how critical infrastructure really is. Especially as AI centralizes information faster than ever — people no longer want to depend on a monopoly for everything they use online
The pandemic, she noted, accelerated that awareness — exposing just how fragile centralized systems can be when global access suddenly matters.
AI and the Next Frontier of Storage
Looking ahead to 2026, Tsao sees storage becoming the silent backbone of AI.
As autonomous agents begin to communicate, generate content, and share data without human oversight, permanent, verifiable, decentralized storage will become indispensable.
“We’re entering a world where agents will store and exchange data with each other,” she said.
“And that requires a storage layer that’s both open and trustless.”
Filecoin is already positioning itself for this future.
The network is expanding its role beyond passive data storage — introducing smart-contract capabilities via Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) to enable on-chain applications and transactions built directly on top of the storage layer.
Bridging AI and Web3 Infrastructure
Over the past year and a half, Filecoin has launched over 10 AI partnerships, collaborating with companies across both Web2 and Web3 ensuring that as AI systems grow, the compute, storage, and data pipelines remain decentralized.
Filecoin’s network is already being used to store AI datasets, ensuring transparency and permanence at the base layer of the AI stack — a critical alternative to the opaque, centralized environments of AWS or Google Cloud.
“When AI models depend on centralized storage, the entire ecosystem is at risk of bias and loss,” Tsao said.
“We’re building the foundation for AI that’s open, verifiable, and distributed.”
The Original DePIN Vision Lives On
As DePIN continues to expand, Filecoin’s decade-long work stands as a proof point:
Web3 infrastructure isn’t an abstract ideal — it’s the tangible backbone of the decentralized internet.
“The world is rediscovering what we started building ten years ago,” Tsao concluded.
“Decentralization isn’t just about tokens — it’s about where the world’s data actually lives.”
