What is Internet Computer?

The Internet Computer (ICP) is the world's first blockchain to run at internet speed with unlimited capacity. It also represents the third major blockchain innovation, alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Internet Computer is a blockchain computer that scales smart contract calculations and data, executes them at web speed, processes and stores data efficiently, and provides powerful software frameworks to developers. By making this possible, the Internet Computer offers the opportunity to completely rethink software - offering a revolutionary new way to build tokenized Internet services, pan-industry platforms, decentralized financial systems, and even traditional business systems and Web sites. Founded in October 2016 by Dominic Williams, the project attracted significant interest from the crypto community. DFINITY raised $121 million from backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, SV Angel, Aspect Ventures, Electric Capital, ZeroEx, Scalar Capital, and Multicoin Capital, as well as several notable early Ethereum backers. In a final step toward decentralization, on May 10, 2021, DFINITY launched the Internet Computer into the public domain. This important milestone means that the Internet now functions as a decentralized global computer - marked by the release of all of the Internet Computer's source code into the public domain, as well as ICP utility token that allows tens of thousands of community members to control the Internet Computer network.

Dominic Williams is the founder and chief scientist of the Internet Computer, formerly DFINITY. He is a cryptotheorist, responsible for inventing Threshold Relay, Probabilistic Slot Consensus, and other new crypto techniques. He is a serial entrepreneur and early member of the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities. Previously, he was President and CTO of String Labs, an incubator for venture-backed crypto projects, an early pioneer of DeFi at Mirror Labs, and founder and CEO of Fight My Monster, an MMO game for kids that quickly scaled to millions of users. He also founded several startups, including System7, Airdocs, and Smartdrivez. Graduated from King's College London 1st in class in Computer Science.

The purpose of the Internet computer is to expand the public Internet to become the computing platform of the world. Today, the Internet is a network that connects everyone and everything, but systems and services currently run on private infrastructure. The scientific breakthrough behind the Internet computer is the Chain Key technology, which includes dozens of advanced technologies, such as New Consensus, Non-Interactive Distributed Key Generation (NI-DKG), Network Nervous System (NNS), Internet Identity, etc. Chain Key technology consists of a set of cryptographic protocols that orchestrate the nodes that make up the Internet computer. It is one of the fundamental breakthroughs behind the Internet computer, allowing for a single public key. This is a huge advantage because it allows any device, including smartwatches and cell phones, to verify artefacts from the Internet computer. In contrast, this is not possible for traditional blockchains. The single public key is just the tip of the iceberg: Chain Key Technology is the engine that drives the Internet Computer and makes its operation possible. It makes it possible to add new nodes to form new subnets to scale the network infinitely; replace failed or crashed nodes with new ones without ever stopping; revive subnets even when too many nodes within have failed; and seamlessly upgrade the Internet Computer Protocol, allowing the network to fix bugs and add new features. DFINITY's R&D team invented a new, non-interactive key-sharing protocol. Each of the old signers only needs to send one message to the new signers. To ensure that this is done securely, it uses many concepts from advanced cryptography, including forwarding secrecy encryption and non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs. Because the protocol is non-interactive, the way key re-sharing works are ideal for an asynchronous environment, and the benefits include key retention. Throughout the life of a subnet, it is known under a single public key, and the other parties on the Internet computer do not have to keep track of changing public keys.