Three years ago, we started Zen with a simple belief: AI should be open, decentralized, and governed by its community. Today we formalize that mission with the launch of Zoo Labs Foundation.

Why a Foundation?

The work we’re doing transcends any single company. Open AI development, decentralized science, and community governance require sustained, mission-driven effort. A foundation structure ensures:

  • Mission permanence: The foundation’s charter protects the mission from commercial pressures
  • Community ownership: Governance tokens give stakeholders genuine control
  • Research independence: Researchers pursue important problems, not just profitable ones
  • Open infrastructure: Tools and systems remain open and accessible

The Foundation’s Mission

Zoo Labs Foundation exists to advance open AI research and decentralized science. We pursue this through:

Open Research

All research conducted under the foundation is published openly. This includes:

  • Model weights and training code
  • Dataset documentation and curation tools
  • Benchmark results and evaluation frameworks
  • Negative results and failed experiments

Transparency accelerates progress. Hiding failures wastes collective effort.

Decentralized Infrastructure

We build and maintain infrastructure for decentralized AI:

  • Federated training networks
  • Verifiable inference systems
  • Agent identity frameworks
  • Distributed compute protocols

This infrastructure enables others to build decentralized AI applications without starting from scratch.

Community Governance

Decisions about foundation direction are made by the community:

  • ZIPs (Zoo Improvement Proposals) for major changes
  • Token-weighted voting for resource allocation
  • Working groups for focused initiatives
  • Open forums for discussion and debate

Structure

The foundation operates through several bodies:

Research Labs

Full-time researchers pursuing core AI and DeSci research. Current focus areas:

  • Large language models
  • Multimodal understanding
  • Alignment and safety
  • Cryptographic verification

Grants Program

Funding for external researchers and projects aligned with the mission. Initial fund: $10M over three years.

Priority areas:

  • Open model development
  • Decentralized training methods
  • AI safety research
  • DeSci infrastructure

Working Groups

Community-led groups focusing on specific areas:

  • Model Development: Coordinating open model training
  • Infrastructure: Building and maintaining shared tools
  • Governance: Improving foundation governance
  • Outreach: Education and community growth

Initial Projects

The foundation launches with several active projects:

Zen 2.0

Our next-generation language model series. Currently training:

  • Zen-2-7B: General-purpose base model
  • Zen-2-34B: Enhanced reasoning and knowledge
  • Zen-2-70B: Frontier capabilities (in planning)

All models released under Apache 2.0.

Training Gym

Open source infrastructure for model training. Now includes:

  • Distributed training framework
  • Evaluation harness
  • Experiment tracking
  • Model registry

Experience Ledgers

Persistent memory for AI agents. Production release scheduled for Q2 2024.

Proof of AI

Verifiable inference framework. SDK available now for models up to 500M parameters.

Governance

ZEN Token

The ZEN token governs the foundation:

  • Voting: Token holders vote on proposals
  • Delegation: Delegate votes to representatives
  • Staking: Stake tokens to participate in working groups

Token distribution:

  • 40% Community treasury (vested over 4 years)
  • 25% Early contributors
  • 20% Foundation reserve
  • 15% Grants program

ZIPs Process

Major decisions go through the ZIPs process:

  1. Draft: Author writes proposal
  2. Discussion: Community feedback (minimum 2 weeks)
  3. Revision: Author incorporates feedback
  4. Vote: Token holders vote (5-day voting period)
  5. Implementation: Approved proposals are executed

Transparency

All foundation operations are transparent:

  • Financial reports published quarterly
  • Research progress shared monthly
  • Governance votes recorded on chain
  • Meeting notes published publicly

Join Us

The foundation is as strong as its community. Ways to participate:

Contribute

  • Submit research proposals
  • Contribute code to open projects
  • Participate in governance
  • Join working groups

Build

  • Use foundation infrastructure
  • Build on open models
  • Integrate with our tools
  • Launch complementary projects

Support

  • Acquire ZEN tokens
  • Provide compute resources
  • Fund specific research
  • Spread the word

The Road Ahead

We’re at the beginning. The foundation launches with a strong base: years of research, working infrastructure, and a committed community. But the hardest work is ahead.

Building open, decentralized AI systems that benefit everyone is ambitious. It requires sustained effort, careful governance, and broad participation. The foundation provides the structure. The community provides the energy.

Join us at zoo.ngo.

Zach Kelling is a co-founder of Zoo Labs Foundation.