Sui Foundation said it has invested $30 million in DATA Network. As part of the strategic partnership, DATA Network will join the Sui technology stack and integrate with Walrus, an onchain data storage platform.
Sui Foundation will also become DATA Network’s largest institutional holder, alongside existing stakeholders PIP Labs and the DATA Foundation.
DATA Network to retire standalone chain
DATA Network will be upgraded into a protocol that runs natively on Sui, and its standalone chain will be retired. Existing DATA tokens will migrate to Sui at a 1:1 ratio.
The original network will continue operating until the transition is completed. Sui Foundation said it will publish a detailed timeline before the upgrade.
Walrus set as default storage layer
Under the arrangement, Walrus will become the default storage layer for applications operated by the DATA Foundation.
DATA Foundation shifted to AI training data in June
The DATA Foundation said it pivoted from general intellectual property infrastructure to AI training data in June. Its Trace product, launched in June, is designed to track the provenance and usage rights of AI training data and settle payments to data contributors.
According to the announcement, the Trace registry has recorded more than 250 million contributions since launch and is currently processing more than 3 million receipts per day.
Mysten Labs executive comments on provenance-ready datasets
A co-founder and chief product officer at Mysten Labs said the AI industry has reached a stage where open internet content has been extensively read, and that the next frontier is access to consented datasets with the provenance proof required by regulators.
Once DATA Network and Trace move onto the Sui stack, they will provide large volumes of high-quality data with clear rights status that has already served leading AI labs globally.