Nous Research

Nous Research is an open-source artificial intelligence research lab that develops human-centric language models and simulators. Founded in 2023 by CEO Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, "Teknium", and Shivani Mitra, the company was formalized after emerging informally in 2022 as a collective of researchers and developers on platforms like Discord and Twitter. Based in New York City, Nous Research aims to challenge the centralized approach of major AI labs by creating world-class, open-source language models.

The company's core business revolves around a decentralized, community-driven approach to AI development. It utilizes blockchain technology, specifically the Solana network, to coordinate a global network of contributors who can offer idle computing power from consumer and industrial-grade GPUs for training AI models. In return for their contributions, participants are rewarded with tokens, creating a transactional and incentivized ecosystem. This model seeks to replace costly, centralized data center training, promote transparency through auditable training processes, and democratize access to advanced AI.

Nous Research has developed several key technologies and products. Its Hermes series of models, including Hermes 4, are known for being highly steerable and having minimal content restrictions, which gives users greater control compared to many commercial systems. The company has also created infrastructure like the Psyche Network, a decentralized training platform, and DisTrO, a technology that reduces communication overhead between GPUs to make distributed training more efficient. Other notable developments include DataForge, a synthetic data generator, and Atropos, an open-source reinforcement learning framework. Its flagship models have surpassed 50 million downloads.

Financially, Nous Research has attracted significant investment. After initial seed rounds totaling around $20 million, the company secured a $50 million Series A round in April 2025, led by the crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm. This round brought the company's token valuation to $1 billion. The funding is intended to expand research and development, build out the infrastructure for the Psyche Network, and accelerate the creation of new AI models.

Keywords: open source AI, decentralized AI, large language models, LLM, Solana, blockchain AI, community-driven AI, distributed training, AI simulators, data synthesis, model fine-tuning, Hermes models, Psyche Network, DisTrO, Atropos, AI alignment, natural language processing, reinforcement learning, Paradigm, AI infrastructure, GPU computing, crypto native