Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and a pioneer in AI research, joins Bowen Wang, a key contributor to NEAR's scaling efforts. They dive into how NEAR is revolutionizing blockchain with AI and improving scalability through sharding innovations. The duo discusses unlocking cross-chain liquidity and the challenges and opportunities in decentralized systems. They also explore the fascinating intersection of smart contracts and AI, predicting an exciting future for user experience in the crypto space.