What Is Internet Computer?

Internet Computer (ICP) is a blockchain protocol developed by the Dfinity Foundation — a Swiss non-profit organization that, according to its website, operates the largest blockchain R&D team in the world.

According to its founder and chief scientist, Dominic Williams, only two networks in the top 50 cryptocurrencies run on sovereign, specialized hardware: Bitcoin and Internet Computer. 

While Bitcoin relies on ASICs for mining, ICP operates on custom-built node machines hosted in independent data centers. This architecture allows it to run without relying on cloud providers like AWS — a key step toward full decentralization. 

This setup is fundamentally different from blockchains that depend on Big Tech infrastructure. In simple terms, a company like Amazon could theoretically shut down a PoS blockchain if most of its validators are hosted on AWS.

A real-world example: in November 2022, German hosting provider Hetzner deactivated over 20% of Solana’s validators — something that simply isn’t possible with Internet Computer. 

Another defining feature of ICP is its concept of orthogonal persistence — the ability to retain application state without relying on external databases. This means that apps built on Internet Computer can operate fully autonomously, with all critical data stored directly on-chain. 

Moreover, according to Chainspect, ICP ranks as the second fastest decentralized network, trailing only Solana in transaction speed.

“At its core, Internet Computer is the world’s first blockchain operating at web speed with unlimited scalability. This is the solution to the blockchain trilemma — creating a decentralized, secure, and scalable network,” said Williams.

Caffeine AI

From Williams’s words, one might conclude that ICP boasts a revolutionary design. However, not everyone shares this view. For example, Justin Bons, founder and CTO of Europe’s oldest crypto fund Cyber Capital, argues that ICP is riddled with misleading technical jargon.

18/31) ICP is full of this sort of misdirection & technobabble

Making it far more difficult to assess through comparative analysis

For instance, their choice to call DAO’s nervous systems & smart contracts canisters

Might seem innovative & complex but to me screams obfuscation

— Justin Bons (@Justin_Bons) January 17, 2025

“For example, Dfinity’s choice to call DAOs ‘nervous systems’ and smart contracts ‘containers’ might sound innovative and complex, but in reality, it’s a clear attempt to confuse. We literally have to ‘translate’ the terminology: replicas = nodes, and neurons = staked ICP,” Bons stated.

It’s hard to judge how technically accurate Bons’s critique is, but a quick Google search for “Self-Writing Internet” mostly returns results about Internet Computer. The “Self-Writing Internet” is another term coined by the Dfinity team. Caffeine AI, meanwhile, brands itself  as the “world’s first platform for self-writing applications.” 

Put simply, Caffeine AI is an app that allows users to create decentralized apps (dApps) using voice commands, which are then converted into code deployed on the Internet Computer blockchain. This approach simplifies development, making it accessible even to beginners.

Demo Leak

Caffeine AI was first showcased on January 17, 2025, in St. Moritz at a digital assets and blockchain conference for investors. 

The Dfinity team hosted a workshop focused on the paradigm of a self-learning internet, where AI creates and updates web applications using natural language prompts. Using a simple text query, Williams built a real-time recruiting app — gathering job vacancies, matching them with candidate profiles, and displaying a basic interface directly on the ICP blockchain.

A video of this demo was leaked on X (formerly Twitter) from an anonymous account and later removed. Nevertheless, it was enough to become one of the landmark moments in the ecosystem.

The generation, compilation, and deployment of smart contracts, as well as user interaction, were all carried out through natural language dialogue. The application ran entirely within ICP canisters without any off-chain intermediaries. The final product was created with minimal human intervention: Williams simply input instructions, and the AI handled the rest.

Release

Caffeine AI was officially released on June 3, 2025, at the World Computer Summit in Zurich.

The founder of Dfinity unveiled the alpha version of Caffeine AI by creating four distinct applications in a single presentation:

• A landing page with interactive emojis;
• A personal blog template featuring tags and search functionality;
• An app for booking tennis sessions;
• A countdown timer for the official Caffeine launch.

Williams described this as the embodiment of the Self-Writing Internet paradigm:

“What if anyone could create web applications just by talking? With Caffeine, they’re not written—they’re spoken”.

Community Reaction: From Euphoria to Healthy Skepticism

The Caffeine AI demo sparked mixed reactions across social media and the Dfinity forum: 

• Enthusiasts hailed Caffeine as impressive, seeing its potential to attract new users to the Internet Computer ecosystem; 
• Pragmatists pointed to similar offerings from IT giants like Google Firebase Studio and Lovable; 
• Skeptics questioned Caffeine’s usefulness for “serious applications”.

Despite the divided opinions, the buzz around Caffeine AI appears to have caught the attention of investors, particularly major ICP holders. As a result, the amount of ICP owned by “whales” has reached a historic peak.

Key Technical Challenges

Implementing Dfinity’s vision of a self-learning internet involves overcoming unique technological hurdles.

First, powerful language models are essential — ones capable of interpreting requests and generating program code. The AI industry has already made significant progress in this area, and development continues.

Leading cloud AI services include ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Alongside them, open-source models like DeepSeek and Llama are evolving. These can be deployed on private servers, customized for specific tasks, and manually refined.

However, efficient code generation by AI models is just one part of the puzzle. There are two additional critical challenges.

The first is to provide the model with its own programming environment. This environment must be tailored for the safe and stable generation of functions for self-configuring applications. It must eliminate the risk of errors that could lead to catastrophic outcomes, such as data loss during app updates.

The second challenge is to provide AI with platforms where user applications can be deployed. These apps must operate autonomously, without continuous human involvement, covering critical aspects like cybersecurity and fault tolerance.

In simple terms, AI must write code that works seamlessly across multiple independent components: web server, database, API, authentication, hosting, and more. All these require compatibility, manual tuning, and constant monitoring.

On ICP, backend, interface, and data can reside within a single canister. This simplifies code structure and enhances resilience, allowing AI to focus on application logic rather than orchestrating components.

The Internet Computer network architecture enables AI-generated code deployment without intermediary DevOps infrastructure. This approach is embodied by Caffeine AI — an app that turns AI into a developer capable not just of generating text, but of launching dApps in real time.

According to Williams, the company has invested around $500 million in these complex computing and engineering efforts. However, not all of this funding went solely to Caffeine AI. Another equally ambitious and controversial Dfinity project is known as UTOPIA. 

UTOPIA

UTOPIA is an isolated version of the Internet Computer network designed for organizations that require full control over their infrastructure and data. The name stands for Unstoppable, Tamperproof, Open Platform for Independent Autonomy — a platform that is unstoppable, resistant to external interference, and open for independent autonomy.

The concept was first introduced in October 2023.

UTOPIA is an acronym for Unstoppable Tamperproof Open Platform for Independent Autonomy. Very similar to a subnet, but 1 party can run all the nodes, if they wished, and configurable replication

— dom.icp ? (@dominic_w) October 15, 2023

Later, it was described as a separate network based on the Internet Computer architecture but deployed entirely under the control of a single entity — be it a government, corporation, or even a military agency. 

First Demonstration

UTOPIA was first presented on January 24, 2024. During the demo, the team showcased key platform features:

1. Deployment of the isolated UTOPIA blockchain network;
2. Setup of a private identity system for the UTOPIA owner (such as a corporation or government);
3. Logging into a personal account using the identity and sending several messages via OpenChat — a messenger built on Internet Computer, similar to WhatsApp or Telegram;
4. Disconnecting a node to verify that UTOPIA and its hosted services continue to operate smoothly without interruption.

After the demonstration, Williams stated: 

“It would not be an exaggeration to say that ICP technology represents the most advanced computing platform available today and is years ahead of its time.”

Announcement and Community Reaction

On June 27, 2024, at a technology symposium in Luxembourg, Dfinity announced the launch of UTOPIA — a platform designed to minimize or eliminate the traditional need for firewalls and antivirus software, thanks to its unique architecture. 

According to the press release, after three years of uninterrupted ICP operation, there have been no hacks or outages, despite hundreds of applications and millions of users. This fact underpins the argument that ICP technology has already been “battle-tested” and is ready for UTOPIA’s rollout. 

However, the Internet Computer community was not fully prepared for the platform’s launch.

In the weeks following the announcement, over 500 comments about UTOPIA were posted on the Dfinity forum. The vast majority were questions directed at the Dfinity Foundation, including: 

• What benefits will UTOPIA bring to ICP holders?
• Is UTOPIA a Dfinity project or an independent organization?
• Will ICP be required for UTOPIA to interact with the public Internet Computer network?
• Where is the funding for this project coming from?

Instead of addressing these and other questions, the Dfinity team simply deleted the UTOPIA post from the forum and  banned some users. Furthermore, since the platform’s summer 2024 presentation, the project’s page on X (formerly Twitter) has seen no new posts. 

All of this fueled speculation that UTOPIA was dead. However, on June 14, 2025, Williams published a post reigniting the conversation around perhaps the most controversial project in the Internet Computer ecosystem. 

Someone asked, what happened to UTOPIA?

A. It’s almost ready. Caffeine will deploy to UTOPIAs as well as the Internet Computer. Total coverage.

— dom.icp ? (@dominic_w) June 14, 2025

“Someone asked, ‘What happened to UTOPIA?’ The answer: it’s almost ready. Caffeine will be rolled out on both UTOPIA and the Internet Computer,” he wrote.

Revival or Utopia?

This and subsequent posts by Williams about UTOPIA marked a “second coming” for the project. But what really caught the community’s attention was the announcement that UTOPIA will be trialed by a number of banks. 

Until now, the project had mostly been discussed in theoretical or experimental terms — positioned as an infrastructure suitable for handling sensitive data, but without any concrete use cases. Now, however, developers have announced a real-world pilot in a field where the bar for security, reliability, and compliance is exceptionally high.

For the Internet Computer ecosystem, this move could represent a major leap in maturity. A banking pilot signals that UTOPIA is being considered as a potential alternative to the centralized cloud solutions that have long dominated the financial sector.

Still, as before, no technical details have been revealed — no information about the scale of the pilot, the geographic regions of the participating banks, or the launch timeline. This continued lack of clarity is fueling speculation and debate across the community.

Conclusions

Overall, it’s hard to find a more controversial project in the crypto space than Internet Computer. 

On one hand, it offers a non-standard architecture: it’s not just a blockchain for recording transactions, but a full-fledged environment for hosting applications — including social networks, data storage, and AI services. And all of it runs without relying on Amazon or Google Cloud infrastructure.

Back in 2019, when asked which project he saw as the most promising competitor to Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin replied:

“I think Dfinity looks quite competent from a technical standpoint. Dominic has done some really impressive work in areas like threshold signatures and distributed key generation. He’s working on real problems. Dfinity is truly contributing to the cutting edge of the industry, and I deeply respect that. Though I think neither Dominic nor I like the word ‘competitor’. We prefer — perhaps euphemistically, or maybe as an ambitious framing — the term ‘sister network’”.

On the other hand, ICP’s price has plummeted by 99% from its all-time high — a crash that severely damaged Internet Computer’s reputation and investor confidence.  

So, is ICP dead or alive? There’s no clear-cut answer. From a price perspective, the project is undoubtedly in crisis, and many would call it “dead” based on that alone.

But if we look at development activity, Internet Computer is showing real signs of life — and even meaningful progress.

ICP isn’t dead — but to truly come back to life, it needs more than just attention. It needs adoption at scale. That will be the key factor for the ecosystem in the second half of 2025.

As Dominic Williams himself put it: 

“If most crypto developers aren’t building on ICP by the end of 2025, I’ll eat my hat”.