Episode

Why AI is so centralized: How it's built, who controls it, and what comes next

Podcast
a16z crypto show
Published
Apr 22, 2026
Duration seconds
1043
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://web3-with-a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/fs25-benharry-v2-final-4pkZ9L0N
Audio
https://mgln.ai/e/1344/afp-848985-injected.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/bf52be5a-9faf-45fb-9bc3-bb4270ec53d9/episodes/3b5b3d41-19be-4281-a21a-eaf5bae6ad7a/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=bf52be5a-9faf-45fb-9bc3-bb4270ec53d9&awEpisodeId=3b5b3d41-19be-4281-a21a-eaf5bae6ad7a&feed=XPOpH7r4
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/a16z-crypto-show-5434524/episodes/why-ai-is-so-centralized-how-it-s-built-who-controls-it-and-what-comes-next
Markdown
/podcast/a16z-crypto-show-5434524/why-ai-is-so-centralized-how-it-s-built-who-controls-it-and-what-comes-next.md

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Summary

Gensyn cofounders Ben Fielding and Harry Grieve join us to discuss why AI’s infrastructure problem runs deeper than most people think. They explain how today’s AI ecosystem depends on a highly centralized stack of data and compute, why that matters, and what it would take to rebuild AI as open, decentralized infrastructure. Along the way, they cover how AI models are trained, why crypto may be essential to the future of AI coordination, and the rise of autonomous AI agents with onchain identities.