This is the rate at which cycles are being burned by the network.
Cycles are the digital fuel that powers computation on the network, and they disappear when consumed. When a user buys using a credit card, the payment provider purchases ICP tokens behind the scenes, converts them into cycles, and then charges up the user's hosted software or cloud engines.
1 trillion cycles is worth 1 XDR (known as a Special Drawing Right/SDR), a currency defined by the IMF. 1 XDR is worth about $1.44 USD.
dashboard.internetcomputer.orgCanisters are tamperproof units of serverless software hosted by the Internet Computer network.
Most canisters are standalone applications, but they can also serve as individual units of software within larger systems. They are capable of serving web-based user experiences, and storing and processing large amounts of data. Each canister is a combination of Wasm bytecode that defines its logic, and dedicated persistent memory pages that hold its internal state. Canisters communicate through function calls.
Canisters are “software actors” that run asynchronously, allowing scalable high-performance applications to be created on the Internet Computer. Data lives "orthogonally" in memory within abstract logic they define, fueling the modeling power of AI, and delivering a new paradigm where “The Program is The Database.”
dashboard.internetcomputer.orgThe Network Nervous System (NNS) is the Internet Computer’s open and decentralized governance and orchestration system, and runs as part of the network.
Anyone can participate, by handing ICP tokens to the NNS, and receiving voting neurons in return, through which new ICP tokens can be earned, by first increasing the maturity of the neurons involved in voting, and then by eventually using them to mint new ICP.
The NNS is one of the largest DAOs in existence, and the only DAO that runs as part of a network protocol to automate orchestration. Its purpose is to play the role of a decentralized and autonomous ICANN for the Internet Computer ecosystem.
dashboard.internetcomputer.orgThe network market cap is the number of ICP tokens multiplied by their price.
Network users convert ICP tokens into cycles that are burned and disappear (deflation), and they are generated by the network to remunerate node providers operating nodes, and by some participants in network governance (inflation).
ICP tokens exist within the network, and enable it to create a self-sustaining network economy without central points of failure.
Sovereign serverless cloud for AIware apps, empowering agentic nations, enterprises, and people — created by an open, mathematical network. Rapidly build your secure future with AI.
Agentic infrastructure, created the internet way.
Apps are immune to cyber attacks on infrastructure.
Apps are guaranteed to keep running without intervention.
Agents and AIware are force-multiplied by a new form of software.
It's hands-free — no servers, databases, or patching to manage.
Scale capacity through cloud re-configs rather than software rewrites.
Use built-in advanced security and digital assets capabilities.
Explore live apps and platforms, both in production, and in early access mode.
Join hundreds of thousands of others. Describe the website, app or service you have in mind, and let AI build it on the Internet Computer. Keep the conversation going to refine the design and add features.
Learn more
The Internet Computer network has added support for "cloud engines" that provide enterprises unparalled control and configurability through an online console.
Explore cloud engines (opencloud.org)
Move to Open SaaS, save money, and revolutionize your business by putting AI on the inside. Give AI tasks and questions, and tune what model gets used when.
Explore Open SaaS (opencloud.org)
The most popular authentication framework on the Internet Computer, which pioneered passkeys in 2021, while also offering support for SSO and more.
Explore Internet Identity (id.ai)
OpenChat is fully controlled by a DAO. Stay in touch with friends and join communities in one open messaging app, with your data and conversations under your control.
Learn more
A sovereign wallet that works in any browser. It holds crypto, stocks, commodities, collectibles, and encrypted notes, and it lets you trade, earn, borrow, and pay.
Learn more
Other venues put settlement on the network and keep matching on their own servers. Here the order book, AMM, margin, and vaults are all tamperproof code, assets stay native, and every balance is publicly checkable.
Learn moreSpecialized hardware, and hyperscaler compute capacity, all over the world.
This 13-node example tolerates up to four faulty nodes. Progress needs timely communication. Record integrity requires certificate verification; an unverified query is not enough. How verification works
AI agents build vastly faster than humans can, and they have their own needs. The Internet Computer runs software inside persistent memory, introducing a powerful new paradigm where the program is the database. Now a program's essential logic persists data automatically, reducing complexity, and fueling the modeling power of AI, enabling AI to go further, faster, and at less cost.
AI agents can develop apps and enterprise infra at unprecedented speed. However, upgrading traditional production systems is risky, as mistakes can result in data loss. On the Internet Computer, new languages like Motoko automatically verify the safety of every upgrade, preventing mistakes resulting in data loss, so you can remove the brakes.
Traditional infrastructure is insecure and sensitive to components such databases being misconfigured or failing. Apps on the Internet Computer are tamperproof, keep their data in persistent memory, and guaranteed to run. This means apps don't need support from security and sysadmin teams, and you can give your agents far more autonomy.
More than half a billion dollars has been spent developing the technology that powers the Internet Computer, which represents the most sophisticated network the world has ever seen. The purpose of the project is to extend the internet, so that it can host software, as well as connecting software.
In recent years, the project has focused on developing the Internet Computer as agentic infrastructure. The Internet Computer unlocks the full potential of AI by force-multiplying agents that build apps, enabling the creation of AIware software that integrate AI much more closely than traditional software can, and removing security and sysadmin requirements, so agents can be allowed to work with far greater autonomy.
The latest innovation, "cloud engines," enables the creation of private subnets that can be arbitrarily configured, for example to combine compute hardware located in the home country, or operated by specific providers, unlocking the simple creation of fully sovereign tech stacks that meet national security needs, or regulatory needs such as GDPR compliance. Cloud engines keep on running even when the underlying compute capacity is swapped, making vendor lock-in history.
Explore the papers and presentations that explain how the Internet Computer works, why it was designed this way, and what it makes possible.
