James Woodman is the co-founder of Manifold Labs, an Austin-based startup focused on developing decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure. He is a key figure in the Bittensor ecosystem, where he previously served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Opentensor and now leads the development of projects such as the Targon compute network. ^{[1] [2]}

Education

James Woodman completed his studies in Finance at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. During his time at the university, he participated in the Investment Banking Workshop, graduated with honors, and was a member of the club soccer team. He ranked within the top one percent of his graduating class.

Career

Woodman previously held the role of Chief Operating Officer at Opentensor, the organization behind the Bittensor network. Following his tenure there, he co-founded Manifold Labs with Robert Myers. Based in Austin, Texas, Manifold Labs operates as a "Bittensor company," building products and services exclusively within its ecosystem. As co-founder, Woodman has overseen the development of two primary projects: Sybil, a hybrid AI-augmented search orchestrator, and Targon, a privacy-focused decentralized network for AI systems. ^{[1] [2]}

Woodman's work is centered on Targon, which operates as Subnet 4 on the Bittensor network. The project aims to create a decentralized marketplace for AI compute, aggregating high-performance hardware to offer enterprise-grade AI inference and training services. Targon is positioned as a cost-effective and secure alternative to centralized cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and services from OpenAI. In public interviews, Woodman has stated that Targon can be up to 85% cheaper than AWS and leverages confidential computing technologies to ensure data privacy for users. The platform aggregates over $70 million worth of NVIDIA-certified hardware, including H200 and L40 GPUs. ^[3]

Under Woodman's leadership, Manifold Labs has focused on achieving financial sustainability for its projects. In a July 2025 interview, he revealed that Targon was generating approximately $100,000 per month in revenue from customers, with a stated goal of scaling revenue to match the $4 million per month in token emissions paid to network miners. He also affirmed Manifold Labs' commitment to the ecosystem, stating that 100% of revenues generated by Targon would be used for buybacks of its native subnet token, Alpha (α). This strategy was supported by a significant funding milestone announced on July 28, 2025, when Manifold Labs raised a $10.5 million Series A round to accelerate Targon's growth. Woodman described this as "the largest raise in Bittensor history" at the time. ^{[2] [3]}

Throughout his career, Woodman has been a vocal advocate for the Bittensor network. He has publicly promoted its potential to offer a decentralized alternative to centralized AI services, highlighting its permissionless nature. In early 2025, he noted the real-world utility of the network's native token, TAO, citing that Targon had processed 7.7 billion organic tokens on the OpenRouterAI platform over a five-day period. He also shared analysis of the network's economic activity, pointing out that as of January 2025, the top 10 subnets had collectively burned over 233,816 TAO in registration fees, equivalent to over $93 million at the time. ^[2]

Philosophy and Public Stances

Woodman has publicly articulated a vision for decentralized AI to challenge the dominance of large technology corporations. In August 2023, he stated his goal was to use Bittensor to "defeat corporate AI by building an intelligence network for the people, by the people." He frequently draws parallels between decentralized technologies, comparing the role of different cryptocurrencies in their respective domains. In September 2023, he posited, "BTC = future of money ETH = future of decentralized software apps TAO = future of decentralized intelligence." ^[2]

He has also framed the competition between centralized and decentralized AI as a matter of user trust and control. In February 2025, he remarked, "For those who distrust Central Banks, there is Bitcoin [BTC]. For those who distrust OpenAI, there is Bittensor [TAO]." This stance was reflected in his personal actions; in November 2023, he announced he had canceled his personal OpenAI subscription in favor of using Corcel, an AI chat application powered by the Opentensor network. Woodman believes the competitive advantage of a decentralized network like Bittensor lies in its open and collaborative nature, stating in January 2025 that its subnets reflect a "tremendous diversity enabled by our collective intelligence" that "no closed-source company can compete" with. ^[2]

Public Appearances and Interviews

Woodman has represented Manifold Labs and Targon in various public forums, including industry conferences and interviews. On September 5, 2025, he was a scheduled speaker at the "Dippy Conf: Planet Scale Consumer AI" held at Google's Toronto office. He was slated to co-present with Robert Myers on the topic, "Rethinking how intelligence is distributed, queried, and owned on the open web." ^[1]

He has also participated in several interviews to discuss Targon's strategy and progress. In early 2025, he appeared on the "Hash Rate Series" with Mark Jeffrey, where he outlined Targon's vision to disrupt traditional AI infrastructure and the importance of generating real-world revenue rather than relying on token subsidies. In July 2025, he was featured on "Revenue Search" with DSV Fund, where he provided specific details on Targon's revenue figures, hardware capacity, and its focus on achieving financial sustainability by balancing revenue with miner emissions. In these discussions, he emphasized the long-term goal of differentiating Targon based on compute quality and uptime guarantees to compete directly with established centralized providers. ^[3]

Decentralized AI and the Future of Compute #02

In an interview featured on the Hash Rate podcast (Episode 108, Targon – TAO Subnet 4), James Woodman discussed the development of decentralized AI computing and Targon’s participation within the Bittensor ecosystem. The conversation with host Mark Jeffrey addressed the structure of decentralized AI networks, their economic models, and the technical approach adopted by Targon to manage distributed GPU computing resources.

Woodman described Targon as a component designed to organize and allocate GPU capacity contributed by independent participants across a global network. The project’s operational model, according to him, relies initially on token-based incentives but aims to transition toward a sustainable framework based on market demand for AI inference services. The system is intended to function as a marketplace linking compute providers and users seeking AI model execution.

During the discussion, Woodman compared Bittensor’s distributed framework to blockchain-based systems such as Bitcoin, emphasizing the replacement of centralized control with incentive-based coordination. He explained that various subnets, including Targon, interact within the shared Bittensor environment through a common token economy, establishing interdependence between different computational services. Security and privacy were also highlighted, with reference to the use of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for data protection and regulatory compliance.

Woodman characterized decentralized AI computation as a structural change in how computational resources are managed and accessed. He noted that the Bittensor network processes large volumes of tokenized transactions each month, positioning it as a functional alternative to centralized AI infrastructure. In his view, Targon’s focus on usability and integration seeks to expand its relevance to both technical and enterprise contexts, reflecting a broader movement toward distributed approaches in AI compute provisioning. ^[5]