The non-profit backed by Google, Salesforce, and the French government is betting that open-source AI can challenge Big Tech's walled gardens, with potential ripple effects across the decentralized tech landscape.
A non-profit called Current AI is attempting something that sounds almost quaint in an era dominated by trillion-dollar tech companies: building AI infrastructure that belongs to everyone. Launched in February 2025 at the Paris AI Action Summit, the organization has secured over $400 million in initial funding commitments and is targeting $2.5 billion over five years to make it happen.
The backers read like a who’s-who of institutional power. The French government, Google, and Salesforce are among the partners that have committed funding. The initiative has drawn supportive statements from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Founded and chaired by Martin Tisné, who also serves as CEO of AI Collaborative, Current AI describes itself as a global partnership focused on creating public-interest AI: transparent, accessible, and not optimized to extract maximum profit from every interaction.
The organization has moved beyond the mission-statement phase. On June 19, 2026, Current AI announced $3.2 million in pilot grants targeting cultural preservation projects in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab region, and the Brazilian Amazon.
Then on July 1, 2026, the team released something called Gap Map v0.1. It’s essentially a diagnostic tool that identifies holes in the existing open-source AI stack where collaborative development could fill the void.
A week later, on July 9, 2026, Current AI launched what it calls an “AI Potluck,” an initiative designed to encourage community contributions to public-interest AI infrastructure.
Tisné’s vision centers on connecting isolated developers scattered across the globe and weaving their work into a cohesive infrastructure spanning hardware and applications.
Current AI has no crypto assets, no token, and no blockchain component. It is, by every measurable standard, a traditional non-profit technology initiative.
The philosophical overlap with decentralized tech is notable: open-source development, resistance to corporate gatekeeping, infrastructure that serves the public rather than shareholders. Decentralized AI projects now face a well-funded non-profit competitor that doesn’t need to worry about token price or investor returns.