From drone delivery and retail deployment to smart glasses and geopolitics, Auki has had a massive run from February 18 to April 15, 2025. As a rising star in the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) sector, Auki is rewriting the rulebook for spatial computing, robotics, and autonomous AI systems — all underpinned by its native token $AUKI.
This blog breaks down Auki’s recent progress, news drops, community updates, and why this project is now central to the decentralized machine economy.
📖 March Recap: Real Deployments, Real Adoption
🏛️ Ethereum Denver Keynote
Auki CEO @broodsugar spoke at Ethereum Denver, delivering a sharp vision: “Machines without spatial awareness are like blindfolded drivers.” Auki’s decentralized machine perception stack, powered by Posemesh, gives robots and devices real-time navigation capabilities — without big tech in the loop.
🛒 Retail Deployment with Cactus
Through a partnership with Cactus, Auki’s tech is scaling into 1,000+ retail stores to power spatial AI for training and logistics. This not only showcases real-world utility but also burns $AUKI tokens with every usage, fueling a healthy token economy.
🚁 Low-Altitude Economy in Hong Kong
In collaboration with Alpha AI, Auki is enabling drone-based building inspections and deliveries in Hong Kong. Their decentralized VPS (visual positioning system) empowers safe autonomous navigation in urban zones, supporting the city’s growing low-altitude economy.
📊 April Momentum: Robots, Wearables & Web3 Sync
🪿 Unitree G1 Integration
On April 11, Auki announced Unitree G1 robot integration. The G1 navigates without pre-mapping — connecting to Auki domains on the fly. Auki’s goal? Scale from dozens of robots today to 100 billion+ in the future. You’re still early.
🧠 Mentra Labs Smart Glasses
April 15 saw Auki showcase 40g smart glasses developed with @MentraLabs. These wearables bring spatial awareness without streaming your camera feed to central servers — preserving user privacy and staying true to the decentralization ethos.
💬 Weekly Community Engagement
Co-founder @SanteriAramo hosted multiple community updates across Discord and X, keeping the Auki fam looped into dev progress, partnerships, and governance. Their weekly rhythm builds trust and transparency, cornerstones of Web3.
🌍 Strategic Media + Industry Leadership
🎧 Podcast with The Rollup & Arthur Hayes
CEO @broodsugar returned to The Rollup podcast (feat. @CryptoHayes) to discuss:
- Geopolitics & tariffs
- Robotics & autonomy
- Decentralized physical infrastructure
Days later, his prediction about China restricting rare earth exports became reality. The pod doubled as alpha and foresight.
🌐 Retail Tech & Web3 Panels
- Retail Tech Show (London): Auki’s BD team presented CactusXR, attracting pilot leads from global retailers.
- Web3 Festival: Co-founders Terri and Nils spoke about AI x DePIN, positioning Auki as a frontrunner at the frontier of decentralization.
🏛️ Decentralizing the Visual Stack: Auki’s Grand Vision
On April 11, Auki declared:
“The writing is on the wall: visual positioning systems will replace GPS. Whether we give our camera data to Meta, Google, or keep it decentralized is up to us.”
They doubled down April 12:
“If you don’t want your vision stack owned by Big Tech, support decentralized VPS. The ticker is $AUKI.”
This decentralization-first thesis aligns with Ethereum’s world computer vision and aims to create a global, shared machine perception layer that prioritizes:
- Privacy
- Open infrastructure
- Interoperability across devices
🔹 Why $AUKI Matters
Each deployment increases node usage and demand for Auki’s infrastructure, with usage-linked burns of the $AUKI token. This makes $AUKI more than governance — it’s digital fuel for decentralized robotics.
Add to that real revenue use cases (retail, drones, wearables), growing hardware integration, and community-first transparency, and you’ve got a DePIN protocol with a bold yet grounded trajectory.
📅 What to Watch Next
- More retail and urban deployments
- Additional robot and smart device integrations
- Tokenomics evolution with supply burns and staking models
- Community proposals around governance and expansion
📌 TL;DR
- Auki is decentralizing machine perception at scale
- Real deployments: drones, robots, smart wearables
- Weekly community updates & media alpha
- Big vision: replace GPS with private, decentralized VPS
Don’t blink. This is the early infrastructure for a decentralized AI world. Follow @aukinetwork and keep $AUKI on your radar.