On October 20, 2025, a major failure in the operation of Amazon Web Services (AWS) disrupted Internet access and the operations of thousands of businesses worldwide.
The incident began early on Monday morning and lasted most of the day; by 3:01 PM Pacific Time, Amazon confirmed that all services had 'returned to normal operation.'
An outage caused by domain name system (DNS) issues in the AWS US-EAST-1 region (Northern Virginia) temporarily disrupted many of the largest internet platforms and applications.
Analysts estimate that the financial implications could be in the billions. This event once again highlighted the fundamental weakness of the digital economy: when a single provider manages such a significant portion of internet infrastructure, a local failure becomes a global incident.
The fragility of centralization
Centralized cloud infrastructure has long been considered reliable. However, the reliability of a centralized cloud is a statistical measure guaranteed by uptime, based on averages, whereas decentralized stability is a structural measure ensured by design. Even the largest centralized providers can face configuration errors, routing failures, or cascading internal dependencies that jeopardize critical services.
When a single provider controls global storage, routing, and data replication, the sovereignty and verifiability of data depend on continuity of operation rather than mathematical proof.
The AWS outage revealed the fragility of this model and demonstrated how concentrated trust can amplify system failures.
As artificial intelligence systems, Internet of Things networks, and autonomous agents become deeply embedded in society, these risks grow exponentially. A failure in centralized infrastructure not only disrupts workflows but also disrupts the continuity of machine learning pipelines, sensor data aggregation, and autonomous decision-making.
Decentralized permanence as an antidote
Autonomys approaches this problem from first principles. The Autonomys network,
built on a new Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS) consensus mechanism, ensures cryptographic verification of every byte of data and its continuous replication across a global network of independent nodes called 'farmers.'
Instead of renting temporary storage from a single cloud service provider, users and applications can store data directly on the chain, where they inherit the same guarantees of permanence, security, and decentralization as the network itself.
Thanks to Auto Drive — a user-friendly gateway to the distributed data storage network (DSN) Autonomys — developers gain access to:
True permanence on the chain with cryptographic proofs of data integrity
Automatic backup through erasure-coded replication among geographically distributed farmers
Dynamic market pricing based on guaranteed SSD capacity rather than centralized control
Such architecture creates a data infrastructure designed not only to operate but to be reliable, fault-tolerant, independent of intermediaries, and verifiable by anyone.
Permanence beyond the quantum horizon
Operational resilience is just part of the story. In the next decade, quantum computing will become a reality capable of overcoming current encryption standards, undermining traditional data security guarantees, and making the permanence and verifiability of information more crucial than ever.
As discussed in the research conducted by the Autonomys research group led by research head Chen Fan, and based on the analysis by McKinsey Digital (2022), "Sectors need to prepare for post-quantum cryptography, based on data longevity and system lifespan. Data with long retention periods, such as corporate trade secrets, personal medical records, or classified government documents, will retain their value even after quantum computers emerge. If such data, transmitted today over public networks, remains relevant for a long time, it may face the threat of interception and decryption by future quantum computers. For example, life insurance plans with extended terms or 30-year mortgage agreements may potentially be at risk from quantum technology, as they will still be in effect when quantum computers become commercially available."
The danger is not in the future, but in the present. Data encrypted with current algorithms can be collected today and decrypted later, when quantum technologies mature.
While Autonomys has not yet implemented post-quantum cryptography, its architecture provides the foundational structure for systems that can evolve towards post-quantum resilience.
Through immutable data anchoring on the chain and their protection with transparent cryptographic proofs, Autonomys ensures that as cryptographic methods evolve, the integrity of stored information remains provable, intact, and ready to transition to next-generation standards.
From fragility to continuity
The AWS outage on October 20, 2025, illustrates an important truth: reliability must be inherent, not dependent. Systems designed for autonomy, verifiability, and stability can withstand both failures and the changing landscape of cryptography.
In an era where AI, data, and computation are becoming increasingly interdependent, Autonomys offers a model of decentralized continuity, where every piece of data becomes a permanent part of a collectively maintained and cryptographically verified history after being stored.
From centralized fragility to decentralized resilience. This preserves digital trust.
About Autonomys
The Autonomys network — the foundational layer for AI 3.0 — represents a hyper-scalable stack of decentralized AI infrastructure (deAI), including high-performance persistent distributed storage, data availability and access, and modular execution. Our deAI ecosystem provides all the necessary components to build and deploy secure super-decentralized applications (AI-based dApps) and on-chain agents, equipping them with advanced AI capabilities for dynamic and autonomous operation.