Illia Polosukhin
Illia Polosukhin is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of NEAR Protocol, a leading Layer-1 blockchain designed for building scalable, low-cost, and user-friendly decentralized applications. Together with co-founder Alex Skidanov, Polosukhin is driving innovation at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence, reshaping how developers build applications and how users interact with Web3 technologies. Recognized as a prominent figure in both blockchain and AI, Polosukhin is often described as one of the early influencers behind modern artificial intelligence breakthroughs. He brings more than a decade of industry experience, including three years at Google Research, where he contributed extensively to TensorFlow and led efforts to develop advanced question-answering systems for Google Search. Polosukhin is also widely known for co-authoring the landmark research paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which introduced the Transformer architecture, the foundation of today’s most powerful generative AI systems, including models like ChatGPT.
Illia Polosukhin Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
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Engineering Manager
Illia Polosukhin co-founded NEAR Protocol with Alex Skidanov to create a high-performance, developer-friendly foundation for Web3 applications.
As a visionary entrepreneur and pioneering technologist, Polosukhin has positioned NEAR as a leading Layer-1 blockchain focused on scalability, usability, and decentralized AI innovation.
Under his technical leadership, NEAR introduced Nightshade sharding, a breakthrough approach to blockchain scaling that processes transactions in parallel across multiple shards.
In 2025, Polosukhin co-authored the academic paper “Proof of Response,” which proposed a mechanism for provable, time-bounded communication between decentralized agents—an important step toward building autonomous, AI-enabled blockchain systems.
In November 2023, he was appointed CEO of the NEAR Foundation, taking on the responsibility of guiding ecosystem-wide strategy, partnerships, and the global expansion of the NEAR ecosystem.
Polosukhin has an extensive background in machine learning, natural language processing, and large-scale AI systems, with more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of AI and decentralized technologies.
During his time at Google, he served as a major TensorFlow contributor and managed the team responsible for developing advanced question-answering capabilities that power the core of Google Search.
He also contributed to research on the Super Kernel Flow Network (SKFlow) architecture, aimed at improving the efficiency and accuracy of machine learning models.
Most notably, Polosukhin co-authored the groundbreaking 2017 research paper "Attention Is All You Need," alongside seven Google colleagues—collectively known as the “Transformer 8.” This work introduced the Transformer architecture, laying the foundation for today’s leading large language models, including ChatGPT, Gemini (formerly Bard), GPT-4/5, and numerous open-source LLMs.
MEDIA PRESENCE & PUBLICATIONS
Illia Polosukhin is widely recognized across the global tech and blockchain ecosystem and is a frequent speaker at major industry events, including the Hong Kong Web3 Festival and other leading AI and Web3 conferences.
His insights have been featured in top-tier media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, TIME, Wired, New York Magazine, Forbes, and TechCrunch, as well as prominent crypto publications including CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Blockworks, and Real Vision.
Polosukhin has authored numerous research papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, data storage, distributed systems, and decentralized protocols, further cementing his reputation as one of the most influential minds shaping the future of AI and blockchain.