Pi Network’s startup fund, Pi Network Ventures, has made its first investment in OpenMind, an artificial intelligence (AI) robotics firm.

The milestone comes amid positive momentum for Pi Coin, which is showing signs of renewed strength. The altcoin has surged 29% over the past week, breaking its months-long bearish trend.

BeInCrypto reported that Pi Network launched its $100 million Ventures initiative in May. At the time, the Pi Core Team explained that the fund aims to back startups and companies that can strengthen the Pi ecosystem by enhancing the utility and real-world adoption of the Pi Coin.

Now, Pi Network Ventures has finally announced its first strategic investment in OpenMind, a company developing open-source infrastructure for autonomous robots.

“Pi Network Ventures…has been looking for projects that turn blockchain infrastructure into something useful and tangible. The company’s long-term goal is to bring more of the world’s production, transactions, and intelligence onto its decentralized network – not as a speculative exercise, but as a real utility. Their partnership with our team at OpenMind fits that vision,” OpenMind stated.

The collaboration between Pi Network Ventures and OpenMind also saw a proof-of-concept experiment designed to test whether Pi’s global infrastructure could handle real AI workloads.

In this pilot, volunteer Pi Node operators ran OpenMind’s image recognition models directly on their devices, effectively transforming the Pi Network into a decentralized AI cluster. The experiment demonstrated that Pi’s infrastructure could handle meaningful AI workloads — a first glimpse of what the partners call a “peer-powered AI grid.”

“The experiment showed that Pi’s 350,000-plus active nodes could handle meaningful AI workloads, allowing Node operators to earn Pi for providing computational resources beyond securing the network,” the blog read.

Thus, this investment marks a milestone as Pi Network seeks practical applications for its network. By prioritizing computational sharing in emerging technologies over speculation, Pi stands out among blockchain projects with limited use cases.

Besides this, the Pi Team has also integrated AI into the core network. This month, Pi Network’s automated, AI-powered KYC process allowed more than 3.36 million accounts gain full verification. Users previously faced delays due to KYC bottlenecks, but the new AI system is accelerating progress while bolstering security protocols.

Notably, the overall ecosystem progress has impacted Pi Coin’s price positively. BeInCrypto Markets data showed that PI has continued to rally, rising 29% over the past week. These gains have also placed PI among the top weekly gainers on CoinGecko.

Earlier this week, the altcoin even hit a 5-week high before experiencing a strong correction. At the time of writing, Pi Coin was trading at $0.25, down 10.56% over the past day.

Meanwhile, Valour’s Pi exchange-traded product has also experienced modest growth in volume in late October, signaling a revival of investor interest.

Therefore, despite short-term challenges, Pi’s recent price momentum and expanding real-world utility point to a cautiously optimistic outlook. The key question now is whether this PI can maintain its upward trajectory or return to another downturn.

The post Pi Coin Surges 29% Amid Major Ecosystem Developments appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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