Sui Foundation announced a $30 million investment in DATA Network on October 12 as the protocol prepares to migrate onto Sui. The agreement would make the foundation its largest institutional holder.

DATA Network plans to retire its independent blockchain after completing the transition. The foundations have not announced a migration date, and the existing network will keep operating until the move is complete.

DATA Network Plans Its Sui Transition

The reported investment agreement brings DATA Network’s AI training data infrastructure and Trace registry onto Sui. Walrus would become the default storage layer for applications operated by DATA Foundation.

Existing DATA tokens will migrate at a 1:1 ratio, according to the announcement. Locked positions and current vesting schedules will transfer without changes.

The foundations say holders will retain economic benefits and governance rights at least equivalent to their existing arrangements. They plan to publish a detailed schedule and instructions before the upgrade begins.

The transaction’s valuation, exact token allocation and financial structure remain undisclosed. The announcement also did not establish whether the entire $30 million had already been transferred.

Blockchain infrastructure is attracting other institutional activity. Related coverage examines financial institutions’ on-chain operations, a separate development involving core financial services.

Trace Tracks Training Data and Contributor Rights

Trace launched in June 2026 to record the origins of information used in AI training. It tracks contributed data, associated rights and payments owed to contributors.

DATA Foundation says Trace has registered more than 250 million contributions. It reports that the system processes more than 3 million receipts daily on average.

Those figures were supplied by the foundation and were not independently audited in the reviewed materials. Applications using the registry include Kled, Numo and Oto.

The Sui announcement says Kled was onboarding more than 1.5 billion records. Numo and Oto supply licensed information to AI laboratories and robotics companies.

Adeniyi Abiodun, Mysten Labs co-founder and chief product officer, described demand for datasets carrying consent and provenance. His comments describe the partnership’s intended use, rather than guaranteeing every dataset’s quality or legal status.

The intersection of AI and blockchain also appears in related coverage of agent payment infrastructure.

Storage Integration and Holder Instructions Remain Ahead

Walrus is a decentralized storage protocol within the Sui ecosystem. The planned integration would connect blockchain records with original files stored under specified access conditions.

DATA Foundation expects encrypted dataset copies on Walrus to support comparisons between registered records and original information. Further verification tools remain development plans.

The migration follows Story Protocol’s June 2026 rebrand as DATA Foundation and its change toward AI training data. The original IP token became DATA during that transition.

SY Lee, chairman of Poseidon and CEO of PIP Labs, will join Sui Foundation as a strategic adviser. The appointment accompanied the investment and technical partnership.

Related reporting on blockchain validator infrastructure considers another model for operating network services.

No mandatory holder action has been announced, and automatic handling by exchanges or custodians remains unspecified. DATA Network’s next operational step is publishing its migration schedule and token-holder instructions.