Our Mission

Artificial intelligence is becoming one of the most important technologies in the world.

Yet the knowledge that powers AI is created by millions of people, businesses, and communities, while the value generated by AI increasingly accrues to a small number of organizations.

Hokusai exists to help close that gap.

The mission is to create infrastructure that allows contributors of valuable data to participate in the ownership of the AI systems they help improve. As AI becomes more capable and more economically important, the people who contribute expertise, knowledge, and real-world data should have a meaningful way to share in the value they create.

The future of AI should not depend solely on who can afford the largest training runs. It should also reward those who provide the knowledge that makes those systems useful.

The Next Ownership Transition

The internet democratized publishing. Open source democratized software development.

AI creates a new opportunity: democratizing ownership.

The knowledge that makes AI useful is created by millions of people, businesses, and communities. Yet the value generated by AI is increasingly concentrated among a small number of organizations.

Hokusai is built on a simple belief: the people who help improve AI systems should have the opportunity to participate in their success.

The goal is not to replace AI labs. It is to create a framework where contributors can participate alongside them, helping make AI ownership more broadly distributed over time.

Principles

  • Contributors should participate in the value they create.
  • Ownership should become more distributed, not more concentrated.
  • Model improvements should be measurable and transparent.
  • Open participation creates stronger systems.
  • Incentives should be aligned by protocol rules rather than trust.

Founder

Tim Ogilvie is a technology entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience building software and data businesses.

Most recently, Tim founded Staked, an institutional staking platform acquired by Kraken in 2021. Following the acquisition, he led Kraken's institutional business.

Throughout his career, one theme has remained consistent: the people creating value are often the furthest removed from owning it.

Hokusai was created to explore a different model - one where contributors can become stakeholders, and where the economic benefits of AI can be shared more broadly by the people who help make it possible.