In this session, mentors from dAIEDGE, together with AETHON Engineering, will present MERCAI (Merchandising AI), a TRL-4 Proof of Concept that brings the vision of decentralized AI marketplaces into a tangible, working reality. Over the past six months, MERCAI has evolved from an idea into a fully functional prototype that leverages blockchain technology to create a transparent and incentive-driven environment where datasets, AI models, and edge-computing resources can be shared, accessed, and rewarded in real time.
Throughout this 60-minute journey, we will guide you through the foundations and ambitions of dAIEDGE, the role MERCAI plays within this broader European vision, and how we successfully transitioned from theory to implementation. You will discover how different actors—data contributors, AI developers, marketplace users, and hardware providers—interact within the platform, and how blockchain-based incentives, powered through the Solana testnet, enable fair and transparent participation.
We will also explore the technical backbone behind MERCAI, showcasing the architecture that supports this decentralized ecosystem, and present the validation results achieved at TRL-4 level. Beyond the prototype, we will reflect on what MERCAI proves today and how it opens the door to future innovation in decentralized AI, reproducibility, and collaborative development.
This session is designed for AI and machine learning developers looking for new decentralized training paradigms, data scientists and data owners interested in secure monetization, hardware enthusiasts willing to contribute computing power to distributed networks, and blockchain or Web3 strategists searching for meaningful real-world applications.
Featuring contributions from Nuria Pazos Escudero (HES-SO - Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale), Raúl López Blanco (University of Salamanca), Zoe Petrakou, and Efstathios Vezyris, this event marks the closing milestone of the MERCAI project, but more importantly, it represents a step forward in dAIEDGE’s mission to decentralize the AI lifecycle.