IPFS (InterPlanetary File System)
A peer-to-peer protocol that addresses files by a hash of their content rather than by the server they sit on, so anyone holding a copy can serve it.
Also known as: IPFS, InterPlanetary File System
IPFS gives every file an address derived from its contents, called a content identifier (CID). Ask the network for a CID and any node holding that data can return it, and you can check the bytes match the hash. Change one byte and the CID changes, so a link to a CID always points at exactly the same content.
What IPFS doesn’t do is keep data alive on its own. A file stays available only while at least one node chooses to store (“pin”) it. Projects that say their data “lives on IPFS” often mean it is pinned by a single company’s server, which leaves the same single point of failure as an ordinary web host. Paid persistence layers such as Filecoin, or storage networks such as Walrus, exist to close that gap.
For decentralised AI, IPFS matters wherever an agent, model or dataset is meant to outlive the platform that created it. The question to ask is who pins the data and what happens if they stop.