BlackRock’s 2026 Thematic Outlook marks a clear shift in how the next phase of technology adoption is being framed at the institutional level. Rather than focusing on consumer-facing AI applications or short-cycle innovation narratives, the report repeatedly returns to infrastructure: the physical, digital, and economic systems required to sustain AI at scale.
The message to investors and builders is explicit: infrastructure is no longer the back office — it’s the bottleneck. In 2026, the limiting factor for AI and tokenized systems is no longer model capability or capital; it’s whether the underlying data infrastructure can persist, scale, and remain trustworthy over time.
Autonomys Network was architected for precisely this inflection point. It is a storage-native Layer-1 built on the Subspace Protocol — designed around permanent, cryptographically verifiable, and globally scalable decentralized storage, because it identified early that data infrastructure is the hardest problem to solve, and optimized for it first.
BlackRock is explicit that infrastructure, not applications, is now the connective tissue between ambition and reality:
“Driven by AI compute, national security, energy demand, and supply-chain resilience, infrastructure is the connective tissue linking economic ambition with real-world capacity.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.12
This framing elevates data infrastructure to the same strategic plane as energy grids and logistics networks. In that context, decentralized systems are no longer evaluated on novelty alone, but on whether they can deliver durable capacity under real-world constraints.
Autonomys sits directly in this category. Its core innovation, Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS), anchors consensus security to stored historical data rather than compute power or staked capital, making storage itself the scarce and valuable resource securing the network. Today that network is secured by a globally distributed base of farmers contributing over 50 PB of pledged storage — proof that infrastructure-first design is already live at scale.
One of the most important technical observations in BlackRock’s outlook concerns the nature of AI workloads:
“Think of tokens as AI’s fuel: more computing power or tasks requires more tokens.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.7
“Token intensity rises sharply as AI moves beyond chat and into reasoning.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.7
“More complex tasks (not just more users) are driving the next leg of compute demand.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.7
Reasoning systems and autonomous agents generate persistent data by design: memory states, decision logs, provenance trails, and evolving context that must remain accessible over time.
Autonomys’ Distributed Storage Network (DSN) is built for exactly these conditions. The network combines scalable bandwidth, erasure-coded replication, and native on-chain indexing to support high-throughput workloads where data must remain tamper-resistant and independently verifiable. The Autonomys Agents Framework and Auto Drive are built so that agentic systems can use the DSN for persistent memory and context — agentic workloads are not an edge case in this architecture; they are a primary design target.
BlackRock repeatedly emphasizes that AI infrastructure is now constrained by physical realities, particularly reliable energy availability:
“For AI infrastructure, power availability & reliability remains a key constraint.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.11
“Power availability remains a key constraint in AI infrastructure.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.13
These constraints challenge assumptions embedded in purely centralized infrastructure models. Autonomys does not replace centralized compute; it decouples long-term data availability from single-region or single-provider capacity.
The DSN is supported by a globally distributed network of farmers (miners) contributing disk space using commodity SSDs. Unlike systems where data lives on external cloud infrastructure or auxiliary storage layers, data stored on Autonomys is written directly to the consensus chain itself. That same data is held on farmers’ hard drives and actively used by PoAS to secure the network. This is a novel architectural design, not because storage is added alongside consensus, but because storage and consensus are the same mechanism. By anchoring both security and availability to real, widely distributed storage rather than specialized hardware, centralized providers, or geographic concentration, Autonomys treats resilience and distribution as foundational properties, not optional optimizations.
BlackRock’s treatment of tokenization is operational rather than speculative:
“As the thematic landscape changes — so may the ways we invest in it, including both private, public, and tokenized exposures.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.2
“The rise of stablecoins may open opportunities to go beyond cash into tokenized assets like private credit.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.16
“Tokenized assets: reflect ownership rights in token format that can be traded, settled, and recorded on a blockchain.”
— BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook, p.18
The word “recorded” is critical. Tokenized systems require durable metadata, provenance records, and historical proofs that remain independently verifiable long after execution or settlement.
This shift is no longer theoretical. In January 2026, the New York Stock Exchange announced it is developing a platform for tokenized securities, stating that it will support “trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities”, subject to regulatory approval. The announcement underscores that tokenization at institutional scale depends not just on execution and settlement, but on durable, trustworthy records that persist over time.
Settlement layers need a data layer: tokenized assets require durable, verifiable records of what’s been tokenized. The DSN, accessed via Auto Drive, is built to be that record layer.
Autonomys does not position itself as a financial settlement layer; its infrastructure is directly relevant wherever tokenized systems require durable, trust-minimized records rather than ephemeral or centralized storage.
Infrastructure only becomes strategic when it is usable.
Auto Drive is Autonomys’ gateway to the DSN, exposing permanent on-chain storage through an interface designed to mirror familiar cloud patterns. It provides an S3-compatible API, content-addressed storage, optional end-to-end encryption, and direct integration with Autonomys’ PoAS secured blockspace. For builders, that means permanent storage with semantics they already know, without needing to learn a new consensus layer, and with cryptographic integrity guaranteed by the network.
This design choice matters in a world where institutions and developers increasingly demand infrastructure guarantees without operational friction. Auto Drive and the Auto SDK allow builders to write data once and rely on the network itself, rather than off-chain pinning or centralized trust, to ensure long-term availability and verifiability.
BlackRock’s 2026 outlook does not suggest a slowdown in AI innovation. It suggests a re-pricing of what actually matters.
Autonomys is built for that shift. It does not compete on short-cycle application features; it competes on whether data can last, remain accessible, and be independently verified over time.
In 2026, that distinction moves from niche to necessary and for the builders and institutions already planning for it, the infrastructure is ready.
Begin storing in minutes. Upload once. Store forever.
Access Autonomys’ permanent on-chain storage today:
Developer Hub: https://develop.autonomys.xyz
Auto Drive: https://ai3.storage
BlackRock
BlackRock 2026 Thematic Outlook — Infrastructure as binding constraint; AI compute and token intensity; power and energy constraints; institutional framing of tokenization (pp. 2, 7, 11–13, 16, 18).
https://www.ishares.com/us/literature/presentation/2026-thematic-outlook-stamped.pdf
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
The New York Stock Exchange Develops Tokenized Securities Platform — Announcement of a platform for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities; institutional validation of tokenization as market infrastructure and durable record-keeping layer (January 19, 2026).
https://ir.theice.com/press/news-details/2026/The-New-York-Stock-Exchange-Develops-Tokenized-Securities-Platform/default.aspx
Autonomys Network
Developer Hub — Auto Drive, Auto SDK, and developer adoption.
https://develop.autonomys.xyz
Documentation — DSN, farming, and network architecture.
https://docs.autonomys.xyz
Auto Drive — Gateway to permanent on-chain storage.
https://ai3.storage
