Render Network upgrades to Solana and distributes GPU on-chain

0:01I'm Ashen Addison from the cryptocoin show and today on blockchain interviews with Andrew Hyde the head of communications render Network Foundation Andrew welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time thanks for having us very exciting Good to connect as well likewise and I know that there's a lot of updates for render feel like it's a great time starting 2024 this could be

0:22the year uh it well regardless there's going to be a lot of updates in uh AI GPU processing uh metaverse and blockchain overall I think the Bitcoin ETF is overshadowing a lot of uh great innovations that are deeper in the space um but I'm excited to hear your Insider insights into it um I would love to start off our conversation but just sort of a high level on render network uh

0:47what the platform is all about and what you and your team have been working on for a while and then we'll dive into the latest details yeah the render network is it's kind of a sleeper project in my opinion uh started in 201 17 back in that batch and we're still building and growing um recently we moved over to salana uh which kind of put us on a lot of lists

1:09um as far as attention and kind of building on chain um the foundation itself empowers the governance process for the render Network the render network is advancing the next generation of rendering in technology that's our general high level um mission statement so we're nonprofit we're based out of the Cayman and uh we're really trying to figure out how we get General

1:32distributed GPU compute to projects that need it um wherever they may be um we deal a lot with um kind of spatial 3D rendering and then General compute clients so we have kind of different customers um based on on where we're going and where there's interest and need for General GPU compute um gpus are all in the news nobody can get enough and everybody needs them for AI models L

1:57language modeling and uh we have I think we're the only people that that can say we have an excess of gpus and are ready for projects so we have a real product live on chain uh we do millions of frames a year already of 3D rendering um and then we are kind of building and testing the market on on what's coming up next um we have apple Vision Pro I saw this morning we might have a launch

2:21date for that um coming up which is very exciting um because those you know if you think about video um and kind of processing from your your MacBook or your kind of souped up machine you have spatial coming from you know Vision Pro and that's going to take a ton of compute power um I think the magnitude is a th to 10,000x depending on how you program it wow and so how do we Empower

2:47those and how do we how do we get creators and artists and find them and find the ones that are saying we want to push the envelope and we want to do bigger and Bolder things um the rotenberry archive is a great example of that um being the you know Star Trek all of that so that's all been rendered and modeled into um a project that that is being used so hopefully we'll see some

3:13uh fun applications from that and no Jews uh the founder of otoy and the founder of the render um network is is really pushing envelope with that working closely with them wow very cool a lot of different updates to dive into and you know I it's it's a whole another world from from me diving into the intricacies of gpus and the different use cases they can have you know I

3:36remember back in the day I my main use case was so I could play better video games when I was growing up I needed the best GPU and that was before Bitcoin um but I know that a lot of blockchains as well the that are running with mining with gpus that was one of the reasons why there was a big uh demand for them and that we were seeing a lot of the gpus were uh sold out completely um but

3:59I know that gaming and the metaverse spatial web I'm sure the rendering for that and for video editing as well is like in high demand especially as the graphics get better um I'm hoping that the decentralized metaverses will increase their graphics and along with that you need the computing power for gpus um so those are some of the use cases that I personally had experience

4:21with I'm curious on sort of one of the top or most important practical examples in use cases on what render is working with right now I think I mean we're we're in this interesting space in that we're end to end encrypted so our artists using the platform have to tell us they're using the platform and sometimes that's uh that's surprising so we found out

4:46recently that the spear in Vegas we have an artist that's actually producing for that and so they are learning a new format right like how do you play around with what you can do and you're hitting export to a screen size that you've never heard of you know didn't even know it could exist so that's a little bit of that we're catching up to kind of the

5:07market as far as you know what are people dreaming up and I was not dreaming up the sphere in Vegas to be a place where GPU power was was needed but it is um and then I think gaming is really you know like we're kind of returning to the roots of that with GPU um Power where people just want to see those experiences be as realistic as possible um and the developers are wanting to see

5:32that um I think Apple The Vision Pro is a great example of what can be created um when you have the proper processing and and the proper ability to launch um and I think the the idea of just general compute right like we launched compute clients is this idea of what happens if you do have a decentralized massive array of of compute at your fingertips

5:57um and so we've we've teamed up with a couple distributed models um beam is one of them FML and then i.net are our first three um you know I work with the governance process for the render foundation so I'm I'm deep in the uh very exciting governance um which most people don't don't find to be very interesting U most people you know just want to see it live and working and such

6:21but you know what we're building is this idea of what can you know what what how can we respond to the market um and how can we respond to the the biggest and boldest versions of that like how do people dream with it so our our grants process right now is almost exclusively for artists using the network and so if you go to our website render foundation.com you can see a lot of what

6:43they created which is this like Photo realistic like amazing worlds um and when we gave them grants and we gave them compute power to do bigger and Bolder projects we basically said we don't expect anything in return we just want you to do things that you thought were was impossible or that you wanted to push you know with mhm and so that was our goal with that very cool and

7:03yeah that I've seen this the videos of the sphere and the resolutions you wouldn't be able to comprehend it unless you saw it in person and I feel like that's just the beginning you know it's that's one of the very cool things but I feel like that will be the normal as the compute and rendering speeds and and quality just exponentially improved just

7:24like AI is over the coming years that will be it will seem normal in you know a year or two yeah and we have artists you know that that kind of built up these soup souped up rigs or you know miners that um you know ethereum switched over and kind of their rigs are are obsolete now so they have all this like idle VI power so they use their rig 2% of the time and so we

7:47have a lot of our nodes or artists that are donating you know their their computer overnight and then being rewarded in compute time which then they can be used on their own personal projects or their own professional projects to um and and I want to dive into that a little bit deeper in terms of the blockchain or the decentralized network of it you know when I think of you're

8:09needing a lot of compute or rendering power you know you just think okay there's a lot of graphics cards that are needed but they're not may not all be in one space in one Warehouse is that correct correct so could you explain a little bit how that works and and where's the distribution how do people get involved D in providing the rendering power yeah we have a long list and I

8:35think that's one of the errors of the project is that we have more GPU compute than we have uh use for it um for various reasons right so our our you know to be added as a node we just turned off the weight list I think the weight list was just over two years to get on as a wow so we just kind of turned that off and said this isn't a great spit um as far as our demand of

8:59three you know which is our Focus um you know spatial web isn't here yet right like one Museum opening up an amazing immersive experience could absolutely take over our network but we're not seeing those huge jobs and we're not seeing those big use cases come through quite yet um these are use cases that you know Amazon you know like one of the first 3D you know spatial jobs that I

9:25ever ever heard of going through Amazon kind of shut down a data set right like the it's just a different use model these file format are not for um kind of what is out there um so our nodes are all over the world um our compute clients are you know something I have a little bit more familiarity with because they apply and we try to get them connected and onboarded um one of our

9:51compute clients is online two of them are about to be online so you know we we're still trying to figure that out but distributed um people are writing me when they generally have over 25 spare gpus to um put to work you know and so every morning I kind of have this like laughable amount of GPU power kind of wanting to be used and so I think we need to work on the demand side a little

10:14bit more than the actual GPU compute side but we have um both are kind of growing um we we're still in in kind of we're we're advancing we've been around since 2017 an infant in that all of our onchain stuff is now being built on salon so now all of our dashboards need to be ported and we used to do you know quarterly reporting and now we're going to do a minute reporting um based on

10:40just having the the speed of that Network and be able to put that on on chain so a long way of saying you know it's a Global Network we have nodes in Iceland we have nodes all over Europe we have nodes in Africa we have nodes in North America of course um but those uh can be you know we have a scoring system for the jobs that they that they do and so you're going to be able to see you

11:05know as a node you've got a quality score you need to have uptime and you need to have the job you know signed off as something that was a Quality quality job to maintain your score and maintaining and get further jobs very cool thank you for explaining that and you touched there at the end about salana I saw the recent PRS with render Network moving onto the salon of

11:26blockchain um I I've seen other projects as well do the same um it seems like it's a good blockchain for cost efficiency speed um can you talk a little bit about that transition uh the reason of moving to Salona and the response so far yeah we I think it was rmp 001 our our protocol um where we launched actually 002 is our Network expansion um the idea was basically we

11:56want to do a lot more on chain and the gas costs are killing us and so how do we do um you how do we we roll out with another layer one we were on a layer two it was working pretty well but still the gas cost were just killing our creative um abilities so we put forth you know we talked with the community community came up with the idea of moving to salana we voted on it

12:19and we took the year to kind of upgrade and and do that we recently launched that um it's gone super well we have upgrade rewards for those users going from R anddr to render so we have a new token um so that's that's a change and uh yeah Community is super kind really love the founders totally Raj great great team over there um that really want to see us succeed and really want

12:45to see our community you know Thrive and so that's been a nice nice thing I know that you know you can't get into crypto uh fights about much more than layer one expansions so uh we generally don't want to be in that fight we just want to use something that we can put the most things on chain and build stuff for our community definitely and it's it's a

13:09good problem to have when you have so much graphic processing power that there's you know there's there's excess but I feel like there's going to be some catalystic aha moment where something happens probably hopefully this year or next year uh as we see AI growing might have something to do with it uh where a lot of processing power is needed um and

13:32I feel like that's going to be the time when render network will shine above all the others do you have any anticipation or insights into what that might be or what could happen you know any you know we've got a lot of Sparks you know what's going to catch on um there's Bill Gates just posted that he visited the light field labs and I don't know if you've

13:53experienced light field yet but absolute Insanity as far as U being able to capture you know capture an actor an actress and kind of improve upon that um the the last Star Trek the final scene is you know nemoy kind of looking back in time and seeing himself as a young actor and that scene was the same actor on the same day playing two characters 60 years

14:19apart in age and it's just it's so emotionally beautiful that scene and that you know that moment um and that's just one product that could be using this now doing light field takes an insane amount of GPU power right so Bill Gates is getting this great tour and great interview and like one Museum or one you know sphere in Vegas can kind of roll out something like that um one

14:43Production Studio um to the beauty of of what render has done is we've helped artists be better at their jobs by you know empowering them to be faster their renders um usually they set it up overnight and wake up and hope everything worked now we can take those 20 hour renders and cut them down to about 15 minutes wow so the problem with that is that you don't do that much

15:06right you set up those scenes and that might take 10 hours of your talent but rendering it takes 15 minutes not eight hours so we are looking for solution things that you know it's it's kind of a a beautiful problem to have we're too quick to then sell a service that says that we are used all the time so we need to kind of find that spark could be Vision Pro it could be a singular Museum

15:34running wanting to run something super powerful and it could be 3D rendering kind of coming to the masses I'm reading and I'm so excited about kind of the chipsets that are in the MacBooks and in the iPhones and you're able to render using these things and those there's billions of those devices around the world so you know the future is pretty bright um it's very interesting love the

15:59team at render super kind team super smart team um and something that you know I show up every day and I'm super impressed and I think that you that's what you want in a project that's great to hear and one other example that I comes to mind is with AI and right now we've seen a huge rise in AI imagery it's even being integrated directly into Instagram but programs like mid Journey

16:26uh chats Dolly uh meta building their own you know at right now you can sort of real time make any imagery and they're starting with the the video as well but I it's not really out to the mainstream I I feel like in short order there will probably be you know the mid Journey where you can type anything and it will just produce a whole movie in in in seconds uh with full video that would

16:51would need to be rendered out I feel like that would be a great place for render Network to fit into yeah that would be super exciting for me to see um and the idea as well is that this democratizes access to the ability to produce those things right like you don't have to be a venture capital backed startup to have access to the map server farm that can produce things for

17:14your network so it's not just those big players that you're talking about it's also small players that want to compete with them that's that's really exciting yeah definitely democratizing access um but but speaking of big players you mentioned earlier at the beginning about the Apple Vision Pro um I feel like this Hardware is uh something that is necessary to be improved as well and you

17:38know a lot more about it than I but maybe you can talk about that Vision Pro and how render fits into that and sort of where we see the industry going yeah I mean if you think about the Vision Pro succeeding like early iPhones succeeded because the apps the App Store really drove that um I mean the core things but you know the apps really were there so

17:56what is going to be built on the Vision Pro that's going to be that that sticky feature um Oculus I think is super interesting I've used it a couple times but it kind of suffers from that like this is neat problem and uh you know where is the Vision Pro actually going to succeed for long-term use every day and you know I don't think that programmers are really

18:16gonna be you know doing headsets with h you know their code but I do think that a lot of games are going to happen a lot of immersive experience are going to happen a lot of concerts a lot of live a lot of things that I find be very interesting are the things that are very GPU you know expensive um so what happens you know when an app catches on that is the reason why you use the

18:42vision you the Vision Pro or the one that you boot up when you get that device and you tell your friend it's over that wants to see it so how can that experience be amazing and I think Apple has dialed things in I mean that's what they're famous for but what do the start startups that are building the apps that are going to be that experience that is the next level how

19:04are they empowering you know their their creative journey and I think that's where render really can step in rotenberry archive is something that I think everybody should be looking at when it comes to Vision Pro and what can be done um Jules has been very vocal about you know them having 3D modeled every single um you know ship Enterprise you know like all of those

19:29um those worlds and so what happens if you build a game that's just you know um you know you're a mechanic on the ship and you're flying around the ship trying to figure out a loose wire and you're just kind of in this meditative State flying around space looking at the most beautiful imagery you've ever seen like I don't know I think I would want to see

19:49that and I think Apple would want to see that as well um but that's empowered you know it's a little bit different than I think a lot of the games we imagine right like I think everybody's going launch with you know Dune or you know like these these games that have been played out and I think that division Pro is just a complete different ability in

20:08what it can Empower so that's what we hope I haven't got my hands on a product yet I know there's several friends that have and and have shot videos and have kind of nudged me saying you wouldn't believe what's going to happen um so that makes me very excited um but I really am excited to kind of put my hands on it myself and I'd love to develop apps for it as well like my

20:28creative process really excited yeah no it's very exciting and I feel like having the you know that the spatial version of the app store that has an environment when they lower the barriers to entry to really make it easy to develop apps that are high quality and get people's creative juice flowing and once that sort of infrastructure is built out then render I feel like render

20:54Network would do really well in that you'd be able to compute it but there just needs to to be more content more ideas in an environment that really Fosters being able to create without a lot of barriers to entry yeah I mean I think of games I think of uh concert experiences and live experiences I would love to watch F1 via you know that experience um so yeah

21:19we'll see what's we'll see what everybody does you know it's kind of a it's I we love decentralization and we love Global communities um what happens to the App Store when these big Brands start playing along with you know things that are meant for the users all around the world to connect to their favorite favorite experiences I I'm super excited about that yeah very exciting and I feel

21:40like when that gets to the norm and it might take a few years or decades um the the App Store might be a thing of like the iTunes Store in the past and it'll be like that was what people used to use before we got into the spatial web yeah and now Thro 2024 what are some of the things that render Network and the foundation are working on to grow and obviously Solana is a huge advancement

22:08what comes next after that yeah hopefully more compute clients I think is our short-term desire right we want more projects that are building ways for our project to be used so we have General compute uh how do we get more more use and and we're really listening to the community on that anybody can go to our Discord or find me on you know every platform out there and

22:34we can talk about it um how do we get startups involved I think is a big part of how the rendering Foundation Works um we're doing you know we've got a new infrastructure we've got a new coin so we're trying to get everybody upgraded so um upgrade rewards we're paying for gas fees until the end of the month so people want to do that we'll pay their eth eth fees um and then you know every

22:59month we're sending out like last month we sent out just over almost 200,000 uh render as far as rewards I hate using the term airdrop but we do have upgrade rewards um which is nice and I think what a lot of the users in the space really kind of perk up and and listen for not something we generally like like using but it's there we like when people

23:19upgrade and then um I mean Vision Pro how exciting is that I think that's that's one of the biggest things for me um and then it's a community project right our r&p process is open anybody can can participate anybody can help write an RBP and um get on our Discord and work and we're really a global team so very cool Andrew Well thank you for the insights I will leave the the links

23:44to the platform the Discord uh your connections into the show notes below as well uh great to hear about those incentives and uh congratulations on a successful launch on salana I'm looking forward to the next steps and I will be following along uh so let's definitely follow up in the near future awesome that'd be great have a good day