DATA Network, formerly known as Story Protocol, plans to retire its independent blockchain and migrate its artificial intelligence training data protocol to the Sui network. The move is supported by a $30 million investment from the Sui Foundation, which will become the project’s largest institutional holder alongside existing stakeholders PIP Labs and DATA Foundation.

The partners confirmed the arrangement in a joint announcement. Existing DATA tokens will transfer to Sui on a one-to-one basis. Locked positions, vesting schedules, and governance rights will carry over unchanged under the announced terms. The current chain will remain operational until the migration is finished. A detailed timeline and token-holder transition plan are scheduled for release before the upgrade begins. No completion date has been set.

Strategic Shift from Intellectual Property to AI Training Data

The decision follows a broader repositioning earlier this year. In June, Story Foundation rebranded as DATA Foundation and redirected its focus from general intellectual property licensing toward infrastructure for AI training data. That pivot included the launch of Trace, a registry designed to record the origin, licensing rights, and contributor payments associated with training datasets.

Trace has grown rapidly. DATA Foundation reports more than 250 million contributions registered since launch, with daily processing averaging above three million receipts. One account of the registry’s expansion placed the figure above 270 million registrations within roughly four months. Applications connected to the system include Kled, which is onboarding large volumes of contributor records, along with Numo and Oto, which supply licensed data to AI laboratories and robotics firms.

A DATA Foundation spokesperson explained that operating a dedicated blockchain solely for this use case created unnecessary costs. Maintaining validators, network security, and supporting infrastructure became less justified as Trace scaled. The foundation concluded that rebuilding storage and access-control capabilities already available on Sui would duplicate existing tools.

The spokesperson stated that the $30 million investment formed a separate element of the broader partnership rather than the sole driver of the migration decision.

Integration of Trace and Walrus on Sui

Under the new arrangement, Trace will integrate into the Sui ecosystem. Walrus, the decentralized storage platform built for Sui, will serve as the default storage layer for applications operated by DATA Foundation and its partners. The combination is intended to link data provenance records with large-scale file storage and controlled access.

Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and chief product officer at Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui and Walrus, described the industry context for the partnership.

He noted that the migration would bring existing volumes of rights-cleared data already serving leading AI laboratories onto the Sui stack.

In parallel with the investment, SY Lee, chairman of Poseidon and chief executive of PIP Labs, will join the Sui Foundation as a strategic adviser. Lee previously held a central role in the development of the project that became DATA Network.

Operational Continuity During Transition

DATA Network’s existing blockchain will continue processing activity until the upgrade is complete. The foundations have committed to publishing migration instructions and a holder transition plan in advance. Token holders are expected to retain economic benefits and governance rights at least equivalent to their current arrangements. No mandatory actions for holders have been announced at this stage.

The partnership positions DATA Network’s registry and payment functions alongside Sui’s execution environment and Walrus storage. The next concrete steps remain the release of the migration schedule and confirmation of technical milestones for Trace registrations and storage controls once the protocol operates natively on Sui.