Aptos Labs Collaborates with Microsoft on New AI Blockchain Solution - APT Hits Limit Up

Aptos, the rebranded blockchain formerly known as Facebook's Diem, is integrating Microsoft's AI infrastructure.

Aptos Labs Collaborates with Microsoft on New AI Blockchain Solution

In a move to realize their expanded service and brand strategy, Aptos, the layer-1 blockchain from the "old Meta," has announced a partnership with tech giant Microsoft.

As part of the collaboration, Aptos will integrate Microsoft's AI infrastructure into new blockchain services. This includes the Aptos Assistant chatbot, which will address user queries within the ecosystem, providing valuable resources for developers to build smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). The chatbot is built on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service.

Mo Shaikh, CEO of Aptos Labs, stated:

"The intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology is a groundbreaking advancement, profoundly impacting the development of the internet and society."

Rashmi Misra, Director of AI and Emerging Technologies at Microsoft, also expressed her views:

"By combining Aptos Labs' technology with the capabilities of Microsoft Azure OpenAI, we are moving closer to democratizing blockchain applications. This makes Web3 more accessible to users and provides developers with AI tools to design engaging dApps."

Under the partnership agreement, both companies will explore other blockchain financial service solutions such as tokenization of assets, developing payment solutions, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to strengthen and add functionality to blockchain. Additionally, Aptos will operate validation nodes on Microsoft Azure to enhance network security.

Following the breakthrough success of ChatGPT, many blockchain platforms are racing to capitalize on this trend. This surge in risky investments has also poured into startups in this field. Microsoft itself has invested up to $10 billion in OpenAI, the company behind the globally sensational chatbot tool.

Aptos has been a prominent layer-1 player over the past year, launching its mainnet in October 2022 and gaining acclaim with a thousand-dollar airdrop campaign. As of now, Aptos has successfully raised $350 million through multiple funding rounds. Through integration with the Indian social network Chingari, new user adoption on the layer-1 platform surged by 900% by the end of July. Aptos currently has a total value locked (TVL) of around $53 million, significantly lower than Solana but higher than its competitor Sui, according to DeFi Llama data.

After the news of collaboration with Google, APT prices immediately surged nearly 20% to reach $8, and are currently trading at $7.8 per coin. With the new token unlock phase approaching in just a few days, historical data indicates that APT tends to slip before the unlocking period.

Chart 15m of APT/USDT pair on Binance at 08:10 PM on 09/08/2023

Some skeptics have commented that this is merely a "price-holding" maneuver by the Aptos team ahead of the token unlock, as the collaboration essentially involves utilizing Microsoft Azure services without a major breakthrough between the two parties.