Akhil Jindal, Co-Founder & AI Lead at Moku – Interview Series

Akhil Jindal, AI Lead & Co-Founder at Moku, brings deep technical rigor from his doctoral research at Boston University (2021–22) and graduate work at Stony Brook University (2019–21), where he developed Deep Learning algorithms for computational drug discovery, earning 180+ citations. His earlier roles include Patent Engineering at IBM, an ORISE Fellowship at the CDC, and Patent Analysis work. At Moku, Akhil leads the AI-native architecture behind Grand Arena’s Game, Social, and Spectator layers.

Founded in 2021, Moku is the studio behind Moki—a mischievous, shapeshifting Tanuki who fuels an unhinged universe. Backed by a16z Speedrun and partnered with Ronin, Moku builds games that fuse wild storytelling, nonstop action, and community ownership.

Its newest creation, Grand Arena, reimagines daily fantasy for gamers. Instead of waiting on real-world leagues, AI athletes battle around the clock across different games, with Moki NFTs as the first competitors. Players can back their favorites, speculate on matchups, and stay in the action any time of day—making fantasy gaming as nonstop as the internet itself.

You’ve transitioned from deep learning research in computational drug discovery to building AI-native gaming infrastructure. What parallels or lessons did you carry over into Moku and Grand Arena?

Training AI for drug discovery and for Grand Arena share a lot of parallels. Both are massive search spaces where the challenge is finding the needle in the haystack. To me, modeling biomolecular interactions in drug discovery is an energy-minimization game that nature’s been playing forever. Physics sets the rules, proteins fold in fractions of a second, and those folds interact in dynamic loops. In my research group, we weren’t just building models, we were building large-scale systems that scientists around the world relied on every day. That same science-to-scale mindset carries into Grand Arena: we are building and scaling systems that learn, adapt, and can surprise a global audience. Instead of discovering medicines, we’re discovering new forms of entertainment.

Grand Arena positions itself as “a next-generation daily fantasy platform for AI.” How do you see AI reshaping not just games, but the way communities form around them?

AI lets us turn the universal instinct of speculation into something fun and social. We believe everyone has a little Degen in them; they just haven’t had a way to explore it. In Grand Arena, players can own AI athletes, tweak their stats, and enter daily fantasy contests. That shared ownership and strategy creates communities that are constantly interacting, watching, and competing all without relying on real-world schedules or human limitations.

Can you walk us through the AI-native architecture behind Grand Arena—what makes it distinct from traditional gaming backends?

Our AI athletes play 24/7 in continuous game modes. Unlike traditional fantasy sports, which are tied to real-world schedules, there’s no downtime. Matches run nonstop, which lets us reach a global audience across all time zones. Crypto simplifies international payouts and makes it possible to scale in a way traditional backends can’t.

How do you balance the complexity of nonstop AI vs. AI gameplay with the need for speed and scalability for millions of daily users?

We separate the “intelligence layer” from the live gameplay layer. Models are trained on heavyweight infrastructure, but once deployed they run as lightweight inference services that scale horizontally like any modern game server. That way we can keep improving the brains of our AI athletes without sacrificing speed and still support millions of users in real time.

Grand Arena introduces 24/7 fantasy competitions powered by AI agents instead of human athletes. How do you ensure this stays engaging for spectators and players?

It’s about creating dynamic, unscripted moments that mirror the same excitement you get when a fantasy football player unexpectedly drops 29 points and wins your week. AI lets every match feel fresh, and the always-on factor means there’s always action for someone to watch or participate in. Also, our AI athletes, which are currently Moki NFTs, are trained with reinforcement learning, and owners can actually adjust their stats and behaviors. It’s a bit like a management sim where you turn knobs, test strategies, and watch how that plays out.

What role do Moki NFTs play in shaping gameplay outcomes, and how does that tie into daily fantasy mechanics?

Moki NFTs are the AI athletes in Grand Arena, competing around the clock. Their performance directly reflects their evolving stats, so when a Moki is upgraded, its performance changes, influencing results in real time. Spectators earn points based on these performances, creating a daily fantasy layer that mirrors real-world sports. This design introduces powerful social and dynamic flywheels. The better your Moki performs, the more engaged players and the broader community become.

With Web3’s history of user churn, what strategies are you using to make fantasy contests sticky enough for long-term retention?

Retention comes from giving people reasons to come back every day beyond financial. Grand Arena blends speculation with entertainment and social interaction: players enter in fantasy contests, follow rivalries, and share highlight moments. We also design for progression and collectorship. Your Moki grows stronger, your strategies evolve, your reputation builds, and your fantasy cards determine which Mokis you can enter in contests and how contests are scored. At the core, we’re using crypto to compound viral loops within the system. The social elements already exist, but by adding real ownership and tradability, those loops become stronger and more rewarding over time.

You’re converging three massive industries: fantasy sports, prediction markets, and AI gaming. Where do you see the earliest mainstream adoption coming from?

Grand Arena fills the gap between igaming and event-based sports markets. It’s skill-based, spectator-friendly, and flexible enough for drop-in/drop-out engagement. Early adoption will likely come from audiences already drawn to speculation like fantasy sports fans, web3 gamers, and anyone who enjoys a little speculation packaged as entertainment.

How do you differentiate Grand Arena from traditional fantasy sports platforms, especially when moving beyond Web3-native audiences?

Traditional fantasy sports are limited by real-world schedules, and outcomes can be fixed. In Grand Arena, players can actually own the AI athletes as Moki NFTs. Mokis play 24/7 in continuous game modes, and users create daily fantasy-style lineups based on their performance. It’s like having the sport, the players, and the fantasy layer all self-contained in one ecosystem. You can engage at multiple levels, including owning a player, managing a team, or just entering lineups for daily contests. It’s a more accessible and always-on experience, even for audiences outside Web3.

Looking ahead, do you envision new genres beyond fantasy contests where AI-native games could thrive?

What we’re building goes beyond games. It’s a new category of entertainment. Imagine characters and worlds that never turn off, where IP comes to life, evolves with the community, and storylines emerge from real interactions instead of being scripted. Fantasy is just one participatory layer, properly trained models can also power always-on sports leagues with persistent rivalries, creator economies where users train and trade AI personalities, or spectator-driven formats where the crowd directly shapes outcomes. AI Entertainment blurs the line between sports, games, and media, and makes the audience part of the story.

What does success for Moku and Grand Arena look like three years from now?

In three years, Moku is at the center of the new entertainment category we’re defining. We’ll have multiple first-party hits, the biggest brands bringing their IP into always-on experiences, and audiences everywhere engaging daily with AI Entertainment. Just like esports or fantasy sports before us, we’ll have taken a niche and turned it into a global format. For Grand Arena, our goal is to make AI entertainment that’s always-on, skill-based, and watchable, so that people everywhere can unlock their inner Degen in a safe and fun way.