Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT, has unveiled a new AI training framework designed to run on consumer hardware. The system allows large language models with up to 1 billion parameters to be fine-tuned on smartphones in under two hours. This development is part of a broader trend of cryptocurrency companies, including Bitcoin miners, expanding into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure.
Tether has released a new AI training framework that enables fine-tuning large language models on consumer hardware, including smartphones and non-Nvidia GPUs. According to the announcement, the framework uses Microsoft’s BitNet architecture and LoRA techniques to reduce memory and compute requirements.
The system supports cross-platform training across chips from AMD, Intel, Apple Silicon, and mobile GPUs from Qualcomm and Apple. The company says its framework can cut VRAM needs by up to 77.8% compared to similar 16-bit models, allowing larger models to run on limited hardware.
Tether stated its engineers fine-tuned models with up to 1 billion parameters on smartphones in under two hours, with support extending to 13 billion parameters on mobile devices. The company also pointed to use cases like on-device training and federated learning, where models update across distributed devices without sending data to centralized servers.
The move comes as crypto companies expand into compute and machine learning. In September, Google took a 5.4% stake in Cipher Mining as part of a $3 billion, 10-year deal tied to AI data center capacity. In December, Bitcoin miner IREN said it planned to raise about $3.6 billion to fund AI infrastructure.
The trend continued into 2026 with HIVE Digital Technologies reporting record revenue of $93.1 million, fueled by AI and high-performance computing growth. In March, Core Scientific secured a $500 million loan facility from Morgan Stanley, with an option to expand it to $1 billion.
Activity is also accelerating with AI agents, autonomous programs that can transact and execute tasks. In October, Coinbase introduced wallet infrastructure enabling AI agents to conduct onchain transactions. Last month, Alchemy launched a system allowing agents to access blockchain data services using USDC on Base.
On Tuesday, World, the identity network co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, launched AgentKit. This toolkit allows AI agents to verify they are linked to a unique human while making payments via the x402 micropayments protocol.
