Darkbloom passes 1T tokens as Mac compute network pivots to CI/CD
gajesh · x · 2026-11-03
Darkbloom, a network that pools spare compute, announced it has processed over 1 trillion tokens — while candidly admitting a rough stretch: cheaper inference architectures and growing supply have squeezed provider earnings.
The team's provider debrief (attached) cites three structural shifts:
- Data centers got far cheaper: NVIDIA clusters deliver 20x more output per dollar and can cut prices 90% while keeping 50% margins
- The market caught up: most non-Max/Ultra machines can no longer profitably run inference
- Routing is shifting: OpenRouter now weights decode speed, quantization, and prefill speed over price
The pivot:
- Demand-first: start from what customers need (models, price, TTFT) and build supply toward it
- Beyond inference: launched private beta of Darkbloom Sandboxes and CI/CD, cutting internal costs 50%; CI/CD compute + RL sandbox is estimated as a $400M+/year market — an M5 Pro busy 10% of the time at half market price could earn $5,000/year
- MLX clustering: open-source clustering on Mac clusters, writing SOTA for models like GLM 5.3 Flash; RDMA alpha and disaggregated inference experiments underway
- Recruiting 10 Mac minis/Studios (16+ cores, 64GB+ RAM, 250GB+ storage) for the Sandbox alpha, paid per CI/CD job
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