The Good Tech Companies - How Golem Network Could Transform Salad's $200M GPU Cloud Business Model

Starting point is 00:00:00 This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. How Golem Network could transform Salad's $200 million GPU cloud business model. By a Sean Pondy, greater than can a Web 2 cloud platform processing thousands of production workloads greater than successfully migrate to decentralized infrastructure without sacrificing greater than performance or reliability, Salad. Com, operating for eight years with a global network spanning Fortune 500 clients to AI startups, is about to find out. The company announced a partnership with Golem Network, designed to test whether decentralized physical infrastructure networks, D-E-P-I-N, can handle

Starting point is 00:00:40 the operational complexity of established cloud businesses. This partnership represents something different from typical blockchain announcements. Rather than launching a token or rebranding existing services, Salad, Com plans to mirror actual commercial activity through Golem's permissionless execution layer. The test will process real customer workload. from AI inference to 3D rendering, while evaluating whether Web 3 infrastructure can deliver the efficiency gains needed to justify migration from traditional payment processors and billing platforms. What Salad's operational challenges reveal about Web 2 cloud limitations?

Starting point is 00:01:15 Salad operates a globally distributed GPU cloud platform where both data center sand individuals contribute idle computational resources in exchange for rewards. This model creates operational complexity that traditional infrastructure struggles to address efficiently. The company currently relies on centralized payment processors, usage-based billing platforms, and multiple reward suppliers to facilitate transactions between customers and infrastructure providers across different jurisdictions. Bob Miles, CEO of Salad, Com, explains, greater than, by pairing Salad's globally distributed infrastructure with Golem's greater than decentralized compute layer, we're exploring how customer workloads, revenue, greater than in our

Starting point is 00:01:57 extensive rewards program can flow through D-E-P-I-N. Greater than Greater than Greater than Greater than I first read the Golem White Paper in 2017, and this collaboration reflects a greater-than-shared vision of making advanced computational power more accessible by greater than enabling millions of individuals to contribute underutilized devices. The cost structure of managing global payments represents a significant margin pressure point. Payment processors charge fees for cross-border transactions, currency conversions at additional costs, and maintaining compliance across multiple jurisdictions requires dedicated legal and operational resources. For a platform processing thousands of customer workloads daily,

Starting point is 00:02:37 these inefficiencies compound quickly. Crypto payments and decentralized settlement could eliminate intermediaries, but only if the underlying infrastructure can match the reliability customers expect from traditional cloud providers. How Golem Network's architecture maps to Salad's existing platform, Gollum Network launched as one of the first decentralized computing protocols, creating a marketplace where users can allocate computational resources or access them in exchange for GLM tokens. The architecture connecting compute requesters and providers through a decentralized protocol mirrors how Salads platform already operates, which explains why the company selected Golem after evaluating various DEPIN protocols

Starting point is 00:03:17 starting in Q3 2025. Kyle Dodson, Salad's CTO, explains, greater than the architecture provided by Golem, connecting compute requesters and compute greater than providers via a decentralized protocol, has significant overlap with how greater than Salad's platform operates today. Greater than greater than greater than as salad works towards supporting a frequently requested feature, crypto greater than payments, I am excited to collaborate with the Golem team to further enhance greater than the efficiency of both cost and the compute orchestration of our platform. The initial test phase will mirror a portion of Salad's existing commercial activity across the full range of cloud computing products and services the company offers.

Starting point is 00:03:59 This includes workloads for EnSilco Drug Discovery Simulations, AI inference operations, and 3D rendering tasks. The goal is verifying whether Golem's infrastructure can support the breadth of customer and workload profiles currently utilizing Salad's cloud infrastructure without performance degradation or reliability issues. What this test means for Web 2, Web 3 infrastructure integration, the partnership addresses a question that extends beyond Salad's specific use case. Can traditional businesses integrate with permissionless protocols while maintaining the operational efficiency and user experience that customers expect?

Starting point is 00:04:35 Most DEPIN projects focus on building new networks from scratch. Salads approach tests whether existing Web 2 businesses with established customer-based sand revenue streams can successfully transition computational workloads to decentralized infrastructure. The experiment will evaluate core protocol components including the decentralized marketplace and settlement infrastructure. For salad, success means demonstrating that crypto payments and permissionless compute execution can reduce operational overhead while maintaining service quality. The company specifically wants to understand how its margin profile fits into a sustainable tokenomics model as it scales mirrored traffic through Golem Network.

Starting point is 00:05:15 For Golem, the partnership provides real-world validation of protocol capabilities under production conditions. Working with a platform processing thousands of customer workloads offers insights that internal testing cannot replicate. The collaboration also helps Golem refine its SDK and strengthen support for future integrations with other Web2 platforms exploring similar transitions. The broader implication concerns resource sharing across currently siloed networks. Cloud computing markets remain fragmented between hyperscale providers like AWS and Azure, specialized GPU clouds, and emerging decentralized networks. Successful integration between Web 2 and Web 3 marketplaces could enable participants to access complementary capabilities, potentially creating

Starting point is 00:06:00 more efficient resource allocation across the entire computational infrastructure ecosystem. Final thoughts, this partnership matters because it tests assumptions about decentralized infrastructure under real commercial conditions rather than controlled experiments or theoretical models. Salad brings eight years of operational experience, thousands of existing customers, and production workloads that cannot tolerate downtime or performance issues. Golem provides permissionless infrastructure that could eliminate payment intermediaries and reduce operational complexity. The outcome will provide data that extends beyond either company. If decentralized protocols can support established Web 2 cloud businesses without sacrificing

Starting point is 00:06:39 efficiency, that opens migration paths for other platforms facing similar operations. challenges. If the test reveals fundamental limitations in current D-E-P-I-N infrastructure, that information helps the industry understand what needs improvement before widespread Web 2-Web 3 integration becomes viable. Don't forget to like and share the story. Thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and

The Good Tech Companies - How Golem Network Could Transform Salad's $200M GPU Cloud Business Model

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