DeepSquare - Professional Decentralised Cloud Ecosystem (applying with the SpanishDAO)

Funding Proposals Investments
1

Name of Project

DeepSquare

Proposal overview

Preambule: This application is done in Collaboration with Harmony Spanish DAO. I personally met recently with Marc Morales @marcmorales94 while at the Avalanche Summit in Spain. We had a very interesting conversation around current cloud centralisation on how DeepSquare could help. This proposal is the outcome of our discussion. We would be very happy to join the Harmony ecosystem with DeepSquare and this project is not a go/no go for us. Just a way to accelerate DeepSquare becoming available to Harmony users.

We are dedicated to solving the problem of lack of sustainable, available decentralised compute resources to power Web and Web 3 and Metaverse. We are creating an interoperability layer to link professional computer resource providers (tier2 cloud providers, research centres, …) in a trustless manner. The DeepSquare project wants to tackle all types of compute workloads from High Performance Computing to standard Web hostings. High performance computing powers heavy workload intense disciplines such as AI, edge gaming, simulations, rendering, and is dominated by centralised hyperscalers. Because of the lack of alternatives most of the blockchain gaming and metaverse projects are forced to use services from the metadonts such as AWS, not because they love them but because they do not have viable alternatives. What DeepSuare is set to do is to change this by creating a decentralised, sustainable computing ecosystem. This inclusive ecosystem provides opportunity to everyone to build their amazing projects without giving up on their decentralised ethos, and enables anyone interested to get involved to the extent they want.

We already have a functional stack and we were able to emboard several HPC users coming from different sectors such as universities, AI companies. We need additional funding to develop the trustless aspects of the DeepSquare grid (proof of compute blockchain), create a sustainable standard for compute resources and enforce partnership to increase the scope of potential applications that can run on the DeepSquare Grid to meet the growing demand for compute resources within blockchain (gaming, metaverse, NFTs) but also simply empower project that need decentralisation.

Where we need help:

  • Blockchain / smart contract development: we have a team of developers that build the first sets of smart contracts but we clearly need help on this (at least to review the smart contract code). The development is separated in two tracks: the smart contract layer allowing you to purchase compute resources with your metamask. And the trustless grid network that will be a PoC (Proof of Compute ) blockchain. PoC can be viewed as a variation of Proof of Stake with extra validation of compute tasks execution correctness.
  • Networking / contact with Web3 project that need compute resources
  • Multi-chain logic to implement an arbitrage mechanism for SQUARE price and allow people to pay for computers from different EVM compatible blockchains.
  • We will be hiring researchers experts in consensus algorithm to develop the theoretical framework of what we call Proof of Compute (we currently have discussion with a researcher working with protocol labs, filecoin). We might need help in the implementation of the proof in the blockchain layer.

Milestones Q2:

  • Finalise private sale round
  • First version of cluster factory (the toolset allowing to deploy clusters both on bare metal hardware and in a virtualized environment). This is the keystone of the DeepSquare grid allowing us to emboard local cloud providers and research centres supercomputers before connecting them to the network to sell spare compute resources.

Milestones Q3:

  • Public launch
  • Pre-sale of compute resources
  • Staking rewards mechanism

Milestones Q4:

  • Compute smart contract layer for EVM compatible blockchains (running on testnet) allowing EVM compatible smart contract blockchain to request compute resources in non-custodial fashion (pay with tokens on their Metamask).

We started our private sale 1 on Ethereum, we now moved to Avalanche to finalise private sale 2 on a much more sustainable blockchain. The current plan is to run the Proof of Compute blockchain as a subnet on the Avalanche ecosystem. But we want to be a multichain project because we strongly believe that the future will be multi chain. We want any blockchain users to be able to interact with the DeepSquare grid. This is why we plan to integrate other blockchain after Avalanche. And we decided to choose Harmony as our next blockchain where users will be able to use SQUARE to pay for compute resources. We also want to leverage the Harmony bridges to reach the multichain vision of the DeepSquare project. The vision is to go beyond EVM compatible blockchain and also integrate on the Cosmos ecosystem.

Proposal ask

$300k

It is four axes with potential cross benefits for Harmony and DeepSquare and this is where we focused the current proposal:

  1. Our primary focus is on HPC workloads but why limiting our users to HPC workloads. Our software stack is currently already able to handle both standard virtualized workloads (kubernetes based) and specialised HPC workloads (SLURM based). This opens up the possibilities! What we would like to add in our offering is the ability to spin up blockchain nodes for PoS blockchains. We think the decentralisation, professional grade, sustainable aspects of the DeepSquare grid will allow to remove the pain point of single point of failure when running nodes in big tech giants while still giving to the people setting up the nodes a unified interfaces to access cloud hoster in many different countries and jurisdictions at the same time. Here a potential collaboration with projects like Pocket Network could clearly be envisioned.
  2. The development of the Proof of Compute blockchain will require a Consensus team building the theoretical proof, we will work with researchers active in the Protocol lab and apply for funding with them. The first version of the Proof of Compute will be based on partial job replication to ensure that actors are providing the requested compute resources to the customers.
  3. The development of the Compute Payment Protocol will be done in EVM compatible blockchain. We are looking for smart contracts devs aligned with our vision to complement our current team.
  4. The multichain logic implementation

Metrics for success

  1. The ability to spin up blockchain nodes using the DeepSquare Cluster factory stack
  2. The ability to spin up blockchain nodes in the DeepSquare Grid in many different locations with a single interface.
  3. The ability to pay for compute natively in Harmony
  4. The first steps towards the multichain vision of DeepSquare

Note : the amount in this proposal does not cover all the costs. But it would already be a very valuable contribution. And also creating a strong link between our emerging community and Harmony.

Success metrics and KPI:

  • Successful public token launch
  • Emboarding 5-10 tiers 2 cloud provider
  • Emboarding 2-5 research centre’s supercomputer
  • Emboarding 5-10 startup incubator in the AI space
  • Emboarding 5-10 utility companies (for heat re-use)
  • Providing DeepSquare branded turnkey sustainable clusters
  • Have 2 DeepSquare HPC clusters

External links

The current whitepaper is being currently rewritten. All the general concepts still apply. But the fact that we now focus on a broader range of compute tasks, the High Performance Aspect becomes one of our core strengths but it does not restrict the possibilities to use DeepSquare for other types of workloads.
Whitepaper
Website

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2

Thanks for your proposal, it has been assigned to @jbeltran, who will review and respond shortly :blue_heart:

3

Hello. Thank you for posting the proposal at Harmony.
Would you please post more details regarding these points?

  1. Harmony wants to have a more decentralized protocol based on Validators/nodes around the globe. As far as I read the proposal. Wouldn’t this be a type of hardware centralization? The more users/clients you get, the more centralized the power will be in one Management. I mean, how do you solve centralization under one hardware umbrella?

  2. Who would be the team behind? Expertise? Background?

  3. Tackling workloads wouldn’t it be a new RPC like companies like (as an example) POKT? Wouldn’t it be better to build an RPC? I’d like to know your point of view regarding this comparison.

  4. Regarding the public sale, would it be in tokens? What would be the token mission if so?

  5. Regarding the Grant distribution, which milestones will cover, and when? (Timing)

Thank you in advance.
Best

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Hi @jbeltran,
Thank you for your questions, following are the answers. Happy to provide any additional info needed.

  1. The hardware umbrella is managed at the level of the DeepSquare association. DeepSquare can be rather seen as a broker for compute and not as a centralized admin. We don’t administrate the different grid partners, we create the interoperability layer to ensure that workloads are distributed and handled as expected. The community will be able to vote on the future of the distributed compute grid. Although the community will be involved in voting and proposal early in the project, we don’t want to rush the full decentralized governance as it needs to be well thought out (e.g. to not let any individual actor be able to control the future of the platform). But the plan is 100% clear, governance in the hands of the community when the project is matured. This means that the community will be in power (customers, grid partners, investors, research centers).

  2. The team behind realizing this project would be :
    CHRISTOPHE LILLO: Lead HPC architect - The core responsible for the Project’s hardware and software infrastructure. He takes care of the cluster configuration and supercomputing stack development along with tackling arising technical problems. [BACKGROUND:- CTO and co-founder of both Csquare.ai and Alpine Intuition (now SquareFactory)]
    Mathieu Bour - Sr. Software Engineer - backend & smart contract developer
    Marc Nguyen - Software Engineer specializing in Microelectronics and Computer Science
    Charly Mancel - Senior Software Engineer and solution architect

  3. If I understand correctly your point, you mean that if the DeepSquare grid hosts in a decentralized fashion many Harmony nodes, then DeepSquare could provide a scalable entry point to the blockchain for clients to connect and taking also the advantage of the decentralization to reduce latency. Is this what you mean?

  4. The public sale will be in tokens. We will be selling SQUARE (native token) which can be used

    • to pay for compute through services offered on the DeepSquare marketplace
    • can be converted to DPS to vote on the future of the grid
      Essentially it is a form of pre-selling access to the DeepSquare grid.

  5. The core software stack behind the DeepSquare grid is cluster Factory, which will be released as open-source in Q2 2022.
    It is the key element in provisioning compute stacks to the different compute resource providers.
    Technically the grant will be used

    • to add the ability to spin up blockchain nodes through cluster factory (with the grant Q4 2022)
    • to add the ability to pay for compute from other blockchains and not just Avalanche (e.g. creating liquidity pool, bridges) (expected Q2 203)
      In order to make this possible, the Grant will be used to allocate new team resources mainly in Smart Contract development and Backend
      We are also clearly open to collaboration with existing developers from the Harmony ecosystem!

Regards

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Good evening @jbeltran ! There is any news regarding the DeepSquare application? Thank you for ypur time, appreciate it :blush:

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Sorry for the late reply (reviewing a lo tof projects…).
Thank you for you answer.
All is clear except #5. in case the grant is approved, it won’t be one transfer. Therefore, we need to split it into milestones, so that every time a milestone is concluded, Harmony can fund it. Let’s say you can divide such an amount into 5 milestones.
Thank you!

7

Hi @jbeltran,

Thanks for your answer,
As per request, the following is milestone-based overview and detailed budget allocation is in the table bellow:

  1. DeepSquare is building a decentralised compute ecosystem. To do so, we have to release the Cluster Factory stack first. This is a cluster manager that enables the creation of the DeepSquare grid, a distributed multi-location aggregated compute cluster which will initially spread over 3 locations:
  • Sion
  • Nanterre
  • Grid partner (TBA)
  1. Host Harmony nodes on each location allowing users to have new public endpoint access to the blockchain (RPC endpoint for digital wallets like Metamask). This is the first step towards a decentralised infrastructure node hosting!
  2. DeepSquare will take advantage of hosting several nodes to provide scalable RPC endpoints using Load Balancing software like NGINX or HAProxy
  3. DeepSquare’s next step is to enable everyone to host its own Harmony node without any DevOps knowledge by having access to an easy to use interface on the DeepSquare Marketplace: Run your node as a Service.
  4. DeepSquare is currently building on Avalanche but our vision has always been to be a multi-chain project, enabling users from any blockchain to buy compute with SQUARE tokens (first testnet: 5.1 and then mainnet 5.2). This means that the next milestone is to build the bridge between DeepSquare, Harmony, and Avalanche.

Milestones

(*) intent to use funds to hire Harmony devs

Milestones Grant Details Use of funds
1 $40k Release of the Cluster Factory stack. Deployment on 3 different locations $10k Host harmony nodes. $30k (RPC endpoint scaling)
2 $25k Host Harmony nodes. Provide simple RPC endpoint (*) $25k POC to host testnet validation nodes with the DeepSquare Marketplace for POS blockchains
3 $55k RPC endpoints that scale: Reverse proxy for load balancing (need 3 to 5 Harmony nodes) (*) $40k POC to host mainnet validation nodes with the DeepSquare Marketplace for POS blockchains. $15k interface for Chainstack
4 $60k Interface that allows anybody to host Harmony nodes on DeepSquare infrastructure as a service (*) $60k Security audit of the POS hosting (SaaS)
5.1 $80k Bridge with Harmony testnet, Avalanche testnet and DeepSquare testnet (triangle). SQUARE tokens will be available on Harmony (wrapped SQUARE on Harmony) and one can purchase compute from DeepSquare with it on testnet. $40k Cover the cost. (*) $40k Use for audit
5.2 $40k Deployment on mainnet (requires an audit) (*) Allocation of SQUARE tokens for projects approved in our DAO

POC → Proof of Concept

POS → Proof of Stake

Happy to answer any additional questions and looking forward to your feedback.

1 Like
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@lij @Mattyontap @Biosensei @papi @cheualx
Check this out. Think can be really interesting help for harmony issues and development improvement becoming the first decentralised infrastructure (Layer 0) focused on High-Perfomance cloud computing faucets.

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Where’s the prototype?

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Hi @GeorgeofEmmaInterest

Thank you for your question. Our Proof of Concept cluster is located in Sion in Switzerland at the Energypolis campus (EPFL/HES). This cluster is powered by renewable energy, an immersion cooling system is capturing the heat and passing it onto Sion’s district heating and helps us reach an unprecedented PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of <1 (between 0.5 and 0.7) while the current industry standard is 1.59. Furthermore, Cluster Factory, our multi-cloud HPC infrastructure orchestration tool designed to automate the process of deploying, managing, and monitoring workload-optimised clusters is up and running and the first public version will be released open source on the 15th of June 2022. We are already testing on Avalanche subnets and the plan is to launch our own compute protocol by the beginning of Q1 2023.

11

Good morning @jbeltran!

I guess there is a huge ammount of projects to review but just to have a feedback, there is any uptades regarding DeepSquare application?

Thanks for your time, appreciate it. And have a nice week

12

You can’t be serious. I need to go to Switzerland to check out your prototype? Why don’t you just share a picture and prove its your prototype?

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Hello @GeorgeofEmmaInterest no, you don’t have to go to Switzerland, even though we would be happy to meet you! You can check this video: DeepSquare Proof of Concept Cluster - YouTube

14

So we need these to… I’m still a bit confused

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hi @GeorgeofEmmaInterest what is confusing you? Please help us understand and we will be happy to provide additional info.

16

DeepSquare is a decentralised sustainable cloud: we are building a decentralised sustainable professional cloud ecosystem focused on High Performance Computing as a true alternative to centralised large-tech.

DeepSquare continues to be motivated to explore the possibility of a partnership with Harmony to enable ecosystem growth by making the process of hosting Harmony nodes much more accessible by having an on-demand service in the DeepSquare MarketPlace.

Our mission is to empower the professional cloud with a decentralised interoperable heterogeneous grid. Our collaboration would include an engineering effort to onboard Harmony on the DeepSquare platform.

Blockchains need to aspire to be more decentralised - running on centralised hyperscalers will always hinder this. As a true decentralised cloud, DeepSquare is a perfect fit for Harmony to have nodes running on our infrastructure. At DeepSquare we are making it possible for users to host blockchain nodes as a service and we propose to start with the Harmony blockchain. Users would be able to host Harmony nodes very easily, with RPC endpoints that scale.

DeepSquare can help Harmony to decentralise and scale its network, by executing the following tasks:

  1. Release Cluster factory and use it to create the first instance of the DeepSquare grid with 3 clusters locations: Sion, Basel (CHF) and Nanterre (FR)

  2. Host Harmony nodes at each location allowing users to have new public endpoint access to the blockchain (RPC endpoint for digital wallets like Metamask). This is the first step towards a decentralised infrastructure node hosting! Note: It’s possible to have several nodes running at the same location.

  3. Make it scalable. Hosting several nodes is good. Having RPC endpoints that scale is even better. DeepSquare will use technologies such as NGINX or HAProxy to load balance those RPC endpoints

  4. DeepSquare’s next step is to enable everyone to host its own Harmony node without the need of requiring DevOps knowledge by having access to an easy-to-use interface on the DeepSquare Marketplace.

  5. DeepSquare is currently building on Avalanche but our vision has always been to be a multi-chain project, enabling users from any blockchain to buy compute with SQUARE tokens. The first iteration would be to make users able to buy compute from the Harmony testnet. This means building the bridge between DeepSquare, Harmony and Avalanche.

Moving forward Harmony is planning on tackling the Metaverse and gaming. Running compute in these areas will be paramount. It’s common sense to build decentralised applications on decentralised infrastructures like DeepSquare to avoid consequences that could be game-ending.

DeepSquare also provides flexible hosting options and helps solve the vendor locking issue, a situation in which a customer is so dependent on a vendor for products and services that cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or perceived.

DeepSquare is willing to provide access to the DeepSquare grid to any user, no matter what blockchain they are using. This is why we proposed to onboard Harmony as our next blockchain partner where users will be able to use SQUARE to pay for compute resources. DeepSquare is looking to leverage the Harmony bridges to reach the multi-chain vision of the DeepSquare project.

DeepSquare is saddened to find out that we weren’t approved for this grant. However, we understand that you have a competitive applicant pool. With that being said, DeepSquare hopes you’ll keep us in mind for any opportunities that open up.

DeepSquare will become multi-chain and Harmony will remain one of our targets. We believe in what Harmony is developing and building and for this reason, we would like to bring all the support that DeepSquare can offer to the Harmony ecosystem. We will remain open to future collaboration and partnership with Harmony to achieve shared success. Should there be any other options that we can evaluate together we are always happy to discuss.

@Jacksteroo @jbeltran @Sam @papi @GeorgeofEmmaInterest

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Good morning @GeorgeofEmmaInterest !

I think that Harmony must review this proposal due the large benefits @DeepSquare is bringing to the ecosystem. Huge benefits regarding running nodes and helping Harmony to be more descentralised.

I know there is hard times around Harmony but we can’t stop developing and moving forward.

Let’s find a way to partner or collaborate with DeepSquare.

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I think a project with fundamentals like @DeepSquare is absolutely necessary within the ecosystem. Best regards.

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hey all, is there any possibility to review the DeepSquare application?
@Jacksteroo @Sam @GeorgeofEmmaInterest @papi

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