NEAR AI, the artificial intelligence arm of the NEAR Protocol blockchain, has officially joined the NVIDIA Inception Program, a move announced on January 13, 2026. The program is designed to support AI startups across various growth stages by providing technical expertise, advanced developer tools, and access to critical GPU resources.
The partnership is strategically aligned with NEAR's focus on building verifiable, privacy-preserving AI tools for enterprise and government use cases where data security is paramount. A core technical component of this collaboration is the integration of NVIDIA Confidential Computing into the NEAR AI stack. This technology allows AI workloads to run in hardware-isolated, trusted execution environments, keeping data encrypted during processing, not just at rest or in transit.
Beyond technical resources, joining the program positions NEAR within NVIDIA's venture capital and enterprise network. This grants potential access to specialized investors and opportunities to connect with NVIDIA executives, opening doors for broader adoption and collaboration.
The news has elicited a positive market response. At the time of the reports, NEAR's token was trading around $1.83-$1.85, marking a 5.5% to over 7% increase in the last 24 hours. Trading volume surged to approximately $270 million, an 11% jump, accounting for roughly 11% of NEAR's $2.35-$2.39 billion market capitalization.
This development builds on existing momentum for NEAR's AI initiatives. Its NEAR AI Cloud and Private Chat solutions, launched in December 2025, have already been adopted by entities like the Brave Browser and OpenMind AGI, potentially expanding its reach to over 100 million users. NEAR was recently ranked as the third most active blockchain for AI development, behind ICP and Chainlink.
The announcement follows other positive network developments, including the successful NEAR Intents initiative and a recent tokenomics upgrade where validators approved halving the network's annual tail emission from 5% to 2.5% in October 2025.
