On September 18, a class-action antitrust lawsuit was filed in a U.S. court against OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others. The core of the case involves allegations of an 'AI cartel,' where big tech firms supposedly colluded to intentionally slow down the pace of AI development. According to outlets like Bloomberg, small startups and regulatory authorities are also issuing sharp criticisms of their monopolistic practices.

What’s interesting is that this lawsuit has become a powerful momentum driver for blockchain-based decentralized AI infrastructure. While the stocks of traditional semiconductor companies, including NVIDIA, have faltered amid the monopoly controversy, Web3 AI projects like NEAR Protocol and Bittensor have shown strength. It seems the narrative of 'user-owned AI'—free from the control of giant corporations—is capturing the market's attention.

Bittensor has already proven its technical viability by successfully training large language models through decentralized nodes, and NEAR Protocol is also emerging as an alternative to the monopoly system by introducing confidential computing technology that ensures privacy. As control and regulatory barriers for big tech tighten, the movement of capital and builders toward the open-source, decentralized AI camp is likely to become even more pronounced.

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