Arweave is pushing towards decentralized computing networks to create an innovative smart contract computing environment.

The decentralized storage protocol Arweave officially launched the decentralized computing network, ao testnet, yesterday, providing unique technological innovations including parallel computing mechanisms, long-lived active contracts, native integrated storage facilities, shaping a new brand image of storage + computing to enter the blockchain development market.

Arweave Launches Decentralized Network ao

Two weeks ago, Arweave founder Sam announced on Twitter that they would be launching a computational network that can parallelize the operation of existing PoS networks. Today, the network has officially launched its testnet.

Unlike the design architecture of existing blockchain nodes, ao utilizes Scheduler Units, Compute Units (CUs), and Messenger Units (MUs) as operational components of the network, in conjunction with Arweave's storage infrastructure, fundamentally creating a new computational environment.

Compared to EVM blockchain networks like Ethereum, which have inherent limitations in contract design due to network architecture and account model designs, such as not being suitable for writing loop-type applications or contracts with large amounts of code, ao uses a message-passing layer based on the Actor model to coordinate nodes. Unlike traditional blockchains, it can provide efficient computational performance between different systems, executing any program or smart contract without restrictions. Therefore, there is no need to limit the size and form of protocols, while maintaining the verifiability and decentralization of the network itself.

ao integrates the trustless design of smart contracts with traditional computing environments such as Amazon EC2.

Technical Features

With the unique messaging structure mentioned above, integrating various traditional computing environments as node designs can have many technical advantages, creating an innovative environment for application and contract development.

Parallel Computing

ao can run any number of smart contracts or programs simultaneously. Based on the Actor model, ao does not allow processes to share memory between executions but allows them to coordinate through message passing. This keeps these processes running at full speed without interfering with each other.

Through message passing, ao can achieve an extension mechanism closer to traditional Web2 and distributed system environments than smart contracts.

Modular Architecture

ao does not strictly define computing environment conditions and is modular itself, allowing developers to choose different modular functions, including virtual machines, sorters, message transmission models, and fuel mechanisms, to assemble different environments as needed.

By settling all messages in the same format to Arweave's decentralized data layer, it unifies the modular environment. It is suitable for a widely diverse range of applications in a unified computing environment, where each process can easily transmit messages and collaborate.

In addition, ao's decentralized and modular architecture allows existing smart contract blockchain networks to be inserted into ao to integrate message transmission.

Native Integrated Access Facilities

ao will be able to natively access Arweave, seamlessly loading and executing data of any size directly into memory and writing back to the network. This setup eliminates typical resource limitations and achieves a fully parallel executable environment, greatly expanding the possibilities for application development.

ao may break through the limitations of traditional blockchain networks, especially for complex applications requiring large data processing and computational resources, such as machine learning and high-computation autonomous agents.

Long-Term Activation of Contracts

In traditional smart contract environments, contracts are "awakened" to perform calculations based on user transaction requests. Unless users interact with the application, the program will not remain online at all times, reducing the potential for building innovative applications on it.

ao eliminates this limitation by allowing contracts to have scheduled interaction times, automatically waking up contracts for interactions and executing calculations at set intervals. Any user or process can pay nodes to subscribe to processes in advance to trigger calculations at appropriate frequencies.

Business Development Strategy

Gradual Product Line Improvement

Arweave will not be limited to storage but will also venture into decentralized computing, creating a more complete ecosystem. With improved infrastructure and integration, there is an opportunity to attract more developers and foster the emergence of more innovative applications.

Unique Product Selling Points

Unlike most infrastructure development teams in the industry still constrained by blockchain architectures, the ao team is more likely to break away from mainstream thinking due to Arweave's design, creating a more efficient decentralized network with a new messaging communication mechanism.

Recommended Reading: Not Just Blockchain! How Stateless Infrastructure Brings Efficient Decentralized Networks Reason for Recommendation: Not only blockchain can provide decentralized networks and trustless functions. Arweave and ao's design demonstrate this well, serving as a typical example of stateless infrastructure.

For development teams, ao not only provides a more efficient computing mechanism but also offers a potentially fertile ground for innovative application environments, making it a unique selling point for ao.

Major Challenge: Market Acceptance

While its technical features and business strategy make sense, whether existing ecosystem developers are willing to transition from familiar ecosystems and tools to a completely new development environment depends on whether the actual benefits are sufficient, which will only be known through market testing.

On the other hand, the current testnet operates on an invitation basis, and the number of integrated protocols is still very limited. There are many unknowns about whether Arweave will move the existing market demand as planned.

However, the price of its token AR has already reflected market sentiment, with nearly doubling in the past seven days.