{
  "id": 14181484,
  "title": "Tether Is bridging the intelligence gap with free AI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/13/tether-is-bridging-the-intelligence-gap-with-free-ai",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-13T10:45:46.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Computerworld",
    "slug": "computerworld",
    "url": "https://www.computerworld.com/article/4234276/tether-is-bridging-the-intelligence-gap-with-free-ai.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The world is evolving towards a future where over 10 billion humans coexist with trillions of autonomous agents within a superintelligent universe. However, AI's increasing intelligence is creating a divide between those who can access intelligent tools and those who remain cut off from one of the most significant technological revolutions in decades. In response, Tether is constructing robust infrastructure encompassing AI, communication, finance, and neurotechnology, aiming for a future that doesn't exclude individuals based on geography or wealth. Tether envisions AI as the great equalizer, but its benefits are not evenly distributed. According to Microsoft's Global AI Diffusion report, only 17.8% of the world's working-age population currently benefits from AI. Yet, access remains unequal due to barriers such as cost, privacy, and availability. Notably, despite overall growth in AI adoption, the wealth and intelligence gap persists, with disparities growing between the Global North and the Global South. Between H2 2025 and Q1 2026, the rate of AI adoption surged more than twice as fast in the Global North than in the Global South, highlighting persistent structural barriers in the latter, such as limited access to reliable electricity, internet connectivity, and digital skills. Moreover, research on machine translation has predominantly focused on Asian and European languages with abundant training resources, while African languages spoken by hundreds of millions of people have been largely overlooked compared to their more well-resourced counterparts. To address this disparity, Tether has developed TranslatePsy-AfriSLM, a free open-source AI collection designed for 19 Sub-Saharan African languages. This 800 million parameter model is compact enough to run efficiently on most smartphones, enabling the delivery of courses, educational content, scientific material, and AI-powered learning tools in users' native languages. Over the past few years, Tether has invested in AI, energy, and communications, constructing the infrastructure enabling humans and machines to work at scale without relying on a few gatekeepers. This includes brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and robotics. While Tether is often perceived as a stablecoin company, it prefers to define itself as an infrastructure provider. CEO Paolo Ardoino stated, \"It's been a while since we've considered ourselves crypto.\" Tether is developing universally accessible AI, modular enough to be embedded in devices, systems, and environments. In addition to neurotechnology, P2P communications, and robotics, Tether has created QVAC, a cloud-free AI platform that grants users full control over their data. Operating directly at the point of need, QVAC facilitates peer-to-peer connections between devices without intermediaries, fees, vendor dependencies, or data leakage. Open-source language models can be integrated via QVAC Fabric using a dedicated SDK or the QV.AC app. The inference runtime and fine-tuning framework allow users to execute, train, and personalize models directly on everyday hardware like off-the-shelf GPUs, laptops, and smartphones. By providing privacy-first infrastructure that enables local AI execution and minimizing data exposure to centralized cloud providers, Tether strives to build a more sovereign digital future. Stay updated on Tether's AI developments and subscribe to the QVAC newsletter for more information.",
  "summary": "The world is advancing toward a future in which over 10 billion humans coexist with trillions of autonomous agents in a superintelligent universe. But as AI becomes more intelligent, humanity is being divided into those who can access intelligent tools and those who will remain isolated from one of the greatest technological revolutions in decades. As a response, Tether is building powerful…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}