Telekom Joins NEAR's Enterprise Node Operator Program

Telekom MMS, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, joins the NEAR ecosystem’s Enterprise Node Operators (ENO) program to support the decentralization and security of the NEAR blockchain.

Deutsche Telekom is the first telecommunication company to operate a validator within the NEAR Protocol. Validators check and approve transactions and therefore play a key role in the operation and security of blockchains. Therefore the partnership marks a significant milestone for the institutional orientation of the NEAR ecosystem.

The NEAR Protocol is a user-friendly and highly scalable blockchain network. Thanks to NEAR’s accessibility and scalability, developers can create scalable apps for millions of users on the NEAR platform. The high scalability is enabled by "sharding," which divides the blockchain into smaller, more efficient segments. Each parallel shard divides up the data of the blockchain, which enables linear scalability of the entire network without congestion. It has the capacity to process more transactions, the workload is better distributed, and the network is not overloaded. The Enterprise Node Operators (ENO) program, organized by Meta Pool, expands the NEAR ecosystem through partnerships with companies to incorporate their expertise into the ecosystem by running nodes.

One of the NEAR ecosystem's key focus areas since May 2024 is User-Owned AI. By integrating AI and blockchain, NEAR extends the concept of data sovereignty to AI projects. It includes an open platform for AI projects that is accessible to everyone and is organized and controlled by the platform users themselves.

"The cooperation with NEAR is promising and innovative and together we are breaking new ground. The ecosystem shares our attitude towards greater data sovereignty and user data control for the benefit of the users," says Oliver Nyderle, Head of Digital Trust & Web3 Infrastructure at Deutsche Telekom MMS.

"The partnership with Deutsche Telekom is a significant milestone for NEAR and our Enterprise Node Operator Program. With Telekom's infrastructure expertise, we are taking a big step towards decentralization and professionalism of the NEAR ecosystem," says Claudio Cossio, Co-Founder of Meta Pool.

With NEAR, Deutsche Telekom MMS expands its staking portfolio to include a leading network in the field of decentralized AI and scalability. The reliable infrastructure and technical expertise of Telekom MMS increase decentralization and reliability in the NEAR ecosystem.

NEAR is a highly performant, scalable layer one blockchain and ecosystem with tens of millions of monthly active users leading Web3 in consumer app adoption, Chain Abstraction, and User-Owned AI.

Meta Pool is the leading liquid staking solution for NEAR Protocol, empowering users to stake their NEAR tokens across a diverse network of over 160 validator nodes. In partnership with the NEAR Foundation, Meta Pool is leading the Enterprise Node Operators program, attracting institutional engagement and driving the future of decentralized finance.