DATA Network plans to move its protocol to Sui and retire its standalone blockchain, according to an October 12 announcement by Sui Foundation and DATA Foundation. Its existing chain will continue operating until the upgrade is complete, with a detailed timeline and holder transition plan still to be published.
The joint announcement brings two changes together: DATA Network is to become a protocol running natively on Sui, while Walrus becomes the default storage layer for applications operated by DATA Foundation. Trace, the project's registry for AI training data, is part of the planned move.
A registry and a file-storage layer
Trace records where a data contribution came from and the rights attached to it. The proposed Walrus integration adds storage of the underlying files to that registry workflow. The announcement describes retaining an encrypted reference copy so that later processing can be checked against the contributed original.
That is the intended implementation, rather than a reported result from a completed migration. The announcement does not provide a cutover date or establish that the standalone chain has already stopped.
Why leave a dedicated blockchain?
A DATA Foundation spokesperson told Cointelegraph that maintaining a blockchain for one use case meant bearing validator, network-security and infrastructure costs. The spokesperson said building storage and access-control components independently would duplicate capabilities available through the Sui ecosystem.
The reporting describes a shift away from operating a separate chain toward using shared infrastructure for the training-data protocol. For applications connected to DATA Network, the next concrete implementation details are the migration schedule and transition plan. Both remain ahead, while the current network continues to operate.