Ocean Pal (OP), a shipping company best known for transporting dry bulk and petroleum products, said it plans to pivot to artificial intelligence infrastructure by building a confidential AI cloud service on top of the Near Protocol blockchain.
The Athens-based company announced it has signed a $120 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) agreement to launch its wholly-owned subsidiary, SovereignAI. According to a press release shared with CoinDesk, SovereignAI will serve as an open market vehicle for NEAR, a blockchain platform designed for AI applications. Ocean Pal will continue its shipping business, which posted a first-half net loss of $10.4 million.
Although many companies have adopted digital asset treasury strategies based on the accumulation of the most well-known cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, BTC$115,009.10 and ether Ethereum$4,104.38SovereignAI will be the first to focus on Near Protocol's NEAR token. The company aims to acquire 10% of the token supply over time.
The company's stock, which trades on the Nasdaq, fell more than 20% on Tuesday and was last trading at $1.73. In June, the price was as high as $79.
SovereignAI will be advised by a group of industry stakeholders and aims to leverage its infrastructure to enable user-owned AI and autonomous agent commerce.
“Our strategy goes beyond financial management to proactively build the infrastructure that enables user-owned, privacy-preserving AI at scale,” OceanPal Chief Operating Officer David Schwed said in a statement. “The NEAR Protocol architecture provides the trust, security, and economic collaboration needed to achieve true AI sovereignty and enable the next generation of autonomous agent commerce.”
The advisory board is chaired by Near Foundation co-founder Illia Polosukhin and includes key figures from OpenAI, Quicknode, and Fabric Ventures. Backers of the deal include Kraken, Proximity, G20 Group and others.
