About

Internet Computer is built for the deployment and use of “canisters,” the network’s implementation of smart contracts. Unlike some smart contract platform competitors that rely on centralized cloud computing providers, Internet Computer is designed to function as a “World Computer that can… run solely from the blockchain, without the need for traditional IT.”

Architecturally, Internet Computer is made up of Subnets, independent blockchains run by Node Machines deployed in data centers worldwide. Each subnet (i) hosts canisters and (ii) executes messages, which are analogous to transactions on other networks. Users access canisters via Boundary Nodes that translate requests from users and applications into canister calls by either the API Node or HTTP Gateway.

History

Internet Computer was developed by DFINITY, which was informally founded in 2015 by Dominic Williams and formally incorporated as the non-profit DFINITY Foundation in Zug, Switzerland, in October 2016. Williams founded Internet Computer to develop a “World Computer… that will eventually replace traditional IT, and host all of humanity's systems and services, as well as enabling Web3 that is fully on-chain.”

In 2017, DFINITY began raising funds to develop Internet Computer, with a whitepaper describing its consensus system first published in January 2018. On May 10, 2021, Internet Computer was launched and open-sourced by the DFINITY Foundation. Notably, the network’s native token, ICP, was previously called.) DFN, “after the DFINITY Foundation,” but rebranded in 2021.

Other notable milestones in the project’s history include:

• May 2022 - The project team introduced a research paper detailing a threshold Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) that would allow canister smart contracts to directly conduct transactions on networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• December 2022 - Internet Computer’s implementation of threshold ECDSA allowing canisters to conduct Bitcoin transactions launches on mainnet.
• November 2023 - The project team announces a partnership with SingularityNet to develop decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure (DeAI) on Internet Computer.
• January 2024 - Internet Computer’s new peer-to-peer QUIC-based transport layer is introduced, replacing the previous Transmission Control Protocol-based transport layer.
• April 2024 - The project team announces the launch of Olympus, a decentralized accelerator program on Internet Computer.
• May 2024 - The project team announces the launch of the EVM RPC canister, a service that allows developers to build integrations between ICP canister smart contracts and Ethereum smart contracts, or any other EVM-compatible blockchain.

According to Internet Computer’s updated roadmap (website) released on May 16, 2024, key in-progress and upcoming developments grouped by focus area include:

• Compute Platform

  • Tokamak Milestone: Focused on maximizing the block rate of each subnet by introducing a new synchronous ingress submission endpoint and improving latency issues.

  • Stellarator Milestone: Following the completion of the Tokamak milestone, the project team intends to introduce a new storage layer to enable subnet blockchains to host more than one terabyte of canister smart contract memory, as well as other improvements.

• Decentralized Artificial Intelligence (DeAI)

  • Cyclotron Milestone: Intended to enable onchain inference on larger models in canister smart contracts through WebAssembly performance improvements.
  • Gyrotron Milestone: Intended to allow for AI inference and training for large models onchain.

• Chain Interoperability (Chain Fusion)

  • Deuterium Milestone: Intended to add support for protocols built on Bitcoin. This includes supporting Schnorr signatures. This milestone is intended to be completed by July 25, 2024.
  • Helium Milestone: Intended to add support for canisters to make transactions on Solana.

• Privacy

  • Niobium Milestone: Intended to allow verifiable encrypted threshold key derivation (vetKeys) to be used by applications to encrypt user data.

• Decentralization

  • Solenoid Milestone: Intended to split Boundary nodes into API boundary nodes (routes API calls) and HTTP Gateways (translates HTTP requests to API calls).
  • Levitron Milestone: Intended to make aggregated API boundary node access logs publicly accessible, providing visibility into Internet Computer’s edge infrastructure.

• Identity

  • Separatrix Milestone: Intended to introduce the option of verifiable credentials and identity attributes to a user’s Internet Identity. As of May 28, 2024, a user authenticating with Internet Identity to an application can only do so pseudonymously. This milestone is intended to be completed by June 18, 2024.

• Digital Assets

  • Toroidal Milestone: Intended to introduce the Oisy wallet, which will support Internet Computer and EVM-based applications.
  • Poloidal Milestone: Intended to introduce Orbit, a digital assets framework for financial asset management.

• Governance

  • Plasma Milestone: Intended to introduce a “liquid democracy” feature whereby a user with voting power can elect to cast their own vote or “follow experts they believe will make the best decisions.”

• Developer Experience

  • Berylium Milestone: Intended to provide developers with simplifications and improvements regarding canister lifecycle management.

Notably, a commercially reasonable search found no intended release date(s) for some of the roadmap items.