AI-centric crypto firms SingularityNET, Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol will merge their tokens under a single token known as the Artificial Superintelligence token, ASI, with a fully diluted value of $7.6 billion. Although the three companies will continue to operate separately, an Artificial Superintelligence Alliance comprised of members from each will guide the vision. The ASIA goal is to develop decentralized AI technology on blockchain as an alternative to the large corporations currently controlling AI. The end game, to create artificial general intelligence. The merger is contingent on approval from each community’s members.

“The proposed combined entity plans to create an open decentralized AI infrastructure at scale, as compared to existing systems whose inner workings may be hidden from the public,” writes CoinDesk.

Fetch.ai has its own blockchain infrastructure based on the Cosmos SDK, while Ocean has built a decentralized data exchange protocol on Ethereum, on which SingularityNET’s multi-platform token also operates. The partners’ efforts to decentralize AI over the last seven years have coincided with a blockchain movement to decentralized tokens.

The ASIA will form what Bloomberg calls a “merged token network” that the ASI token will function across, according to a news release that says the “combined decentralized AI network” will provide significant scale and power.

A Fetch.ai blog post says the founders of the three companies have decades of experience in AI advancements, noting that SingularityNET was founded “by the ‘Father of AGI’ Dr. Ben Goertzel,” while DeepMind alum Humayun Sheikh was seminal in launching Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol co-founded by Trent McConaghy, “who previously built AI-based software that every chip designer uses to drive Moore’s Law.”

“As the AI revolution intensifies it is imperative that AGI and ASI are not owned and controlled by any particular party with their own biased interests,” Goertzel said in the announcement. “They should be rolled out in an open, democratic and decentralized way. It makes total sense that our three projects come together to form a tokenomic network that has greater power to take on Big Tech and shift the center of gravity of the AI world into the decentralized ecosystem.”

The communities of the SingularityNet, Fetch.ai and Ocean AI protocols are scheduled to vote on the merger April 2, writes Cointelegraph, which says there will be three separate votes.