Compute Labs

Compute Labs is a real-world asset tokenization protocol built on Solana that converts enterprise-grade GPU hardware into on-chain financial instruments. The project's central premise is that compute power is becoming a foundational asset class for the AI era, yet direct investment exposure has historically been locked behind institutional relationships and enormous capital requirements. Compute Labs aims to dissolve that barrier by creating a transparent path for individual investors to own fractions of the same NVIDIA hardware that powers large-scale AI training and inference workloads.

The Compute Tokenization Protocol

At the core of Compute Labs is the Compute Tokenization Protocol (CTP), a smart contract system that takes custody of physical GPU hardware and issues corresponding digital assets on Solana. When a GPU is onboarded, the CTP mints a GNFT — a GPU Non-Fungible Token built on Solana's SPL-22 token standard, which supports hybrid fungible-and-non-fungible behavior. A GNFT represents direct ownership and yield rights to a specific physical processor. Those GNFTs can then be subdivided into miniGPU tokens, enabling fractional exposure for investors who cannot commit to full-GPU capital. Each tier carries the same underlying economic claim: a proportional share of rental revenue generated when those GPUs run AI workloads for paying enterprise clients.

Revenue flows follow a straightforward structure. Capital raised through a vault is used to procure and deploy GPUs in data centers operated by infrastructure partners. Those GPUs are rented to AI companies for training and inference tasks, with proceeds distributed to GNFT and miniGPU holders after a flat 10% fee covering tokenization, asset management, and yield distribution. Compute Labs provides real-time dashboards tracking GPU utilization, yield accrual, and full transaction histories on-chain, giving investors ongoing visibility into their physical collateral.

GPU RWA Vaults

The product users interact with directly is the GPU RWA Vault. Each vault is a structured pool tied to a specific hardware generation — NVIDIA H100s, H200s, B200s — with defined fundraising targets, hardware procurement plans, and yield projections. The pilot vault launched in June 2025 in partnership with NexGen Cloud, a European AI infrastructure provider. That initial one-million-dollar vault was backed by NVIDIA H200 SXM5 GPUs deployed for live AI training and inference workloads, attracted hundreds of investors, and generated annual yield projections exceeding 30%, supported by existing rental agreements with enterprise clients. Following the pilot's completion, Compute Labs reported more than 100 million dollars in GPU pipeline queued for subsequent vaults.

The vault structure is designed to turn what would otherwise be a capital expenditure — buying GPU hardware — into an ongoing revenue stream tracked on-chain. AI enterprises working with Compute Labs can access compute capacity without upfront hardware ownership, while investors on the other side capture rental income that would otherwise accrue entirely to large data center operators.

The AI-Fi Ecosystem and AIFI Token

Compute Labs describes its broader ambition as building an "AI-Fi" ecosystem — a term the project uses for the intersection of AI infrastructure and decentralized finance. The native governance and utility token is AIFI, with a fixed supply of 100 million tokens. AIFI is used for transactions within the protocol, governance participation, staking, and as a yield-distribution vehicle for certain vault types.

The token allocation is structured as follows: ecosystem reserves hold 40%, the team holds 20%, a protocol reserve accounts for 15%, advisors receive 5%, with the remaining 20% split between pre-seed (10%) and seed (10%) investor tranches. Beyond AIFI, the protocol relies on GNFT and miniGPU tokens as the primary instruments through which investors hold and trade GPU exposure. These SPL-22 assets carry the actual economic claim to underlying hardware and can be transferred or traded on Solana's token markets.

Team

Compute Labs was founded by Albert Zhang, who previously served as a founding member at Delysium and contributed to Y Combinator in 2019. The CTO is Xingfan Xia, an engineer with prior experience at Apple, AWS, and Airbnb. Nikolay Filichkin serves as Chief Business Officer, bringing enterprise IT experience from Xsolla. Kevin Schubert, the Chief Legal Officer, handles financial structuring and compliance. The company operates out of Los Angeles and Seattle.

Funding and Backing

Compute Labs closed a 3-million-dollar pre-seed round in April 2024, structured as a simple agreement for future tokens. The round was oversubscribed 2x and priced at a 30-million-dollar fully diluted token valuation. Protocol Labs, the organization behind Filecoin, led the round. Institutional participants included Blockchain Coinvestors, OKX Ventures, CMS Holdings, HashKey Capital, Amber Group, and P2 Ventures. Angel backers included Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon), Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Protocol), and Austin Federa (Solana Foundation). The company also received incubation through NVIDIA's Inception VC Alliance, which provides early-stage startups with cost savings, discounted GPU supply, and go-to-market support.

Security and Transparency

The protocol's security architecture includes TLS encryption for data in transit and AES-256 encryption for stored data. Compute Labs has committed to regular third-party security audits, penetration testing, formal verification of smart contracts, and an open-source codebase to support community review. A bug bounty program is in place to incentivize responsible disclosure. The combination of on-chain settlement and real-time asset monitoring is designed to address the transparency gap that exists in traditional data center investment vehicles, where investors typically have no direct window into hardware utilization or revenue generation.

Ecosystem Position

Compute Labs launched natively on Solana, citing the network's throughput, low transaction costs, and maturing RWA ecosystem as key factors. The project has signaled plans to expand vault support to NEAR Protocol and Monad as the product matures, though Solana remains the primary deployment chain. The project sits at the intersection of Solana's growing RWA sector and the broader trend of tokenizing physical infrastructure — positioning GPU compute alongside more established RWA categories like treasury bills and real estate as assets suitable for on-chain representation.

The project addresses a genuine structural gap: the capital barriers to owning enterprise GPU hardware are prohibitive for most investors, yet the demand for AI compute from enterprises is substantial and growing. Compute Labs does not manufacture or operate hardware directly; instead it provides the financial and tokenization infrastructure that connects hardware operators with capital from a distributed pool of investors, with Solana as the settlement and ownership record layer.