Internet Computer

Internet Computer (ICP) is a set of protocols that allow independent data centers worldwide to band together. ICP's basic idea is to create a new kind of decentralized Internet and global computing system — where independent data centers all over the world could join together to create an alternative to the cloud services (from companies like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud) that power most of the current Internet. Its innovative design and vision position the Internet Computer as a scalable and efficient platform for building almost any online system or service, including demanding web applications, without the need for traditional IT infrastructure. The Internet Computer has also launched its own token, the ICP token, which is used for governance (holders can vote on the future of the network), to reward network participants for good behavior, and to pay fees for making transactions. Originally called DFINITY, ICP's global and distributed network of data centers can run most of the applications that are accessible via traditional Internet standards, such as DNS (the domain name system you use via web browsers and smartphones).

The Internet Computer works by running canister smart contracts on a network of node machines. These node machines are connected using the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), which enables them to communicate and coordinate their actions. As explained in the MIT Technology Review's profile of the Internet Computer: "Instead of running on a dedicated server in Google Cloud, for example, the software would have no fixed physical address, moving between servers owned by independent data centers around the world." You can think of ICP as a way of converting crypto into processing power — the network will establish a fee based on the amount of computing power required by a developer's project. The website will run on the public Internet as long as the fee is paid. Finally, the Internet Computer network is controlled and managed by a master subnet, which runs an advanced permissionless Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) called the Network Nervous System (NNS). This system instructs the node machines how to structure the network and verifies that the instructions they have received are genuine.

Popular applications on the web are often closed-source, proprietary, and hosted on a handful of data centers owned by big tech firms. If one critical data center fails, huge swathes of the web can also shut down with it. Another major concern with the web (particularly for privacy advocates) is that centralized, corporate web service providers have the ability to censor or de-platform applications. This is why the Internet Computer attempts to offer a fundamental alternative to the current solution, so that developers can build, host, and serve applications in a more decentralized way — allowing websites to be deployed directly onto the public Internet. Internet Computer can be used to build almost any online system or service, including demanding web applications, without the need for traditional and centralized IT infrastructure, making it possible to create fully decentralized online systems and services that are tamperproof, unstoppable, and that can trustlessly interact with the outside world. In theory, any kind of application can be created and run on the Internet Computer — from social networks similar to LinkedIn and TikTok to software similar to all the familiar applications you know today to new kinds of applications not yet conceived. Because it operates via open standards, Internet Computer tends to reduce the conflicts of interest that can arise when a major cloud-computing provider hosts products that compete with its own services.

The Internet Computer was developed by the DFINITY Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Zürich, Switzerland. The foundation was established in October 2016 with the goal of developing the Internet Computer blockchain. The project's founder, Dominic Williams, first used the name DFINITY in early 2015 to refer to his theoretical crypto work, which he hoped would make a World Computer possible. In February 2017, the DFINITY Foundation ran an early public Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to raise funds and scale out its open-source project. This was then supplemented by private fundraising rounds in 2018. By mid-2022, DFINITY employed almost 300 people, primarily in R&D. Researchers worldwide contribute to the foundations' work — including cryptographers who hold around 100,000 academic citations and 200 patents.

The ICP token can be purchased and traded via exchanges like Coinbase.