Decentralized finance (DeFi) is awash with stablecoins generating Treasury yields, while smaller players in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry struggle to raise capital to expand data centers with new GPUs.
A new stablecoin protocol called USD.AI wants to close that gap by turning idle cryptocurrency liquidity into loans for the machines that train and run artificial intelligence.
The protocol, which now has around $345 million in circulation, according to Dune Dashboard, backs its synthetic dollar with short-term credit tied to NVIDIA GPUs housed in data centers rented to AI developers.
Those GPUs generate revenue by selling computing time for model training and inference, and the cash flow is used to pay off the debt that finances them. Lenders earn returns on those repayments rather than token issuances, while borrowers gain access to specialized financing that would exceed the risk appetite of most retail lenders.
The USD.AI structure is based on three interlocking mechanisms designed to make real-world credit work on-chain.
The first, CALIBER, is the legal and technical bridge between a physical GPU and its on-chain representation. Each GPU funded through the protocol is stored in a secured data center and documented under US trade law, then tokenized as a non-fungible token (NFT) that represents a legally enforceable claim on that hardware.
Loans are issued against these tokenized receipts, allowing capital raised on-chain to fund off-chain equipment with collateral behind it. The next layer, FiLo Curator, handles underwriting.
Conservators originate and service GPU loans while posting their own first-loss capital, meaning they absorb any initial defaults before lenders are affected. This structure decentralizes credit origination but keeps incentives aligned: arrangers make profits only when their borrowers perform.
The final component, QEV, which stands for queued extractable value, manages liquidity. Instead of offering instant withdrawals, the system queues refund requests, turning time into a market.
Users who wait are gradually repaid the borrower’s monthly payments, while those who need to get out faster can pay a premium to move up the line. That premium compensates patient lenders and preserves the solvency of the loan portfolio.
Current sUSDai staked yield ranges between 13% and 17%, backed by rebates from GPU traders rather than issuances or leverage loops.
Supporters of USD.AI describe it as a prototype of a broader “InfraFi” model, decentralized infrastructure financing, that could one day extend to renewable energy projects or decentralized computer networks.
For now, its success depends on a more immediate question: whether the economics of GPU leasing (a proxy for AI demand) can stay strong enough to keep those payments flowing.
If they do, USD.AI could become DeFi’s first large-scale bridge between on-chain capital and the real-world machinery behind artificial intelligence.
