io.net Co-founder Tory Green Appointed as Chair of io.net Foundation; Gaurav Sharma Appointed CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth
Dubai, UAE, April 23rd, 2025,
io.net, the leading decentralized compute platform, today announced the appointment of co-founder Tory Green as Chairperson of the io.net Foundation (formerly IOG Foundation). In this new role, Tory will lead the Foundation’s mission to champion open, permissionless infrastructure for AI – driving adoption, advocacy, and ecosystem growth.
Alongside this, Gaurav Sharma, former CTO, has been appointed as CEO of io.net. Gaurav will continue to lead the company’s rapid growth and product innovation as it scales its decentralized cloud platform for the AI era.
The growing need for decentralised AI infrastructure
As demand for AI compute accelerates, the cloud infrastructure powering it is becoming increasingly centralized – controlled by a handful of dominant players. This poses serious risks to innovation, access, and transparency.
The io.net Foundation was established to address this challenge. As decentralization gains momentum across the AI ecosystem, the Foundation’s role has never been more critical. Its core mandate includes:
- Advocating for decentralized infrastructure as essential to the future of AI
- Launching a grants program to support developers, researchers, and institutions aligned with the mission
- Leading cutting-edge global research and thought leadership around decentralization
- Engaging policymakers, institutions, and industry leaders to shape the regulatory and technical future of AI infrastructure
Through public engagement, policy work, and ecosystem support, the Foundation will ensure the decentralized alternative has the momentum and resources it needs to thrive.
Tory Green to support the Foundation’s next chapter
As Chairperson, Tory will spearhead the Foundation’s advocacy and industry engagement efforts – working with developers, researchers, and policy leaders to ensure io.net becomes the defining infrastructure layer for decentralized AI.
With a background in venture capital and early-stage leadership, Tory brings a deep understanding of what’s required to catalyse ecosystem growth. He’ll also serve as an advisor and champion for grant recipients, helping founders and researchers navigate the road to impact.
“The need for decentralization in AI has never been more urgent,” said Tory Green, Chairperson of the IOG Foundation. “The Foundation will push for open, equitable infrastructure that allows AI to scale in a way that benefits everyone – not just the few. I’m excited to lead this work and support the builders who are making that future possible.
Gaurav Sharma named CEO of io.net
As io.net’s CTO, Gaurav Sharma has been the technical force behind the company’s decentralised cloud platform, such as with IO Cloud and IO Intelligence – driving its architecture, network scaling, and core product roadmap.
Prior to io.net, Gaurav held senior engineering leadership roles at Binance, Agoda, and Amazon, where he helped build and scale global platforms handling billions of transactions across cloud infrastructure and digital publishing systems.
With nearly two decades of experience in distributed systems, high-performance computing, and AI infrastructure, he now steps into the CEO role alongside Co-Founder & COO Basem Oubah, as io.net enters a new phase of growth.
“From day one, we’ve been building the decentralised infrastructure layer for AI – something the world desperately needs,” said Gaurav Sharma, CEO of io.net. “I’m proud to take on this role with an exceptional team beside me.”
The bright path forward
The partnership between io.net and the IOG Foundation is increasingly important as the infrastructure behind AI continues to evolve.. While io.net builds and scales the infrastructure layer, the Foundation ensures that decentralization remains at the core of the global AI Conversation.
Tory and Gaurav will host a joint AMA on io.net’s X profile on 29 April.
About io.net
io.net is a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) that deploys and manages on-demand, decentralized GPU clusters from geo-distributed sources. Its network consists of thousands of GPUs specifically architected for low-latency, compute-intensive use cases like AI/ML ops and cloud gaming.
io.net is designed to democratize access to GPU compute capacity while reducing costs, expediting lead times, and expanding options for engineers and businesses. Access compute capacity for a fraction of the cost or become a capacity supplier at IO.net.