Written by: Haotian
Let's systematically discuss the recently high-performing $LAYER @solayer_labs. Especially, why is the InfiniSVM technical roadmap attracting so much attention? What are the characteristics of the hardware-accelerated SVM scaling solution? And how will the Solana scaling ecosystem landscape change after hardware acceleration? Here's my forward-looking observation:
1) Different from the horizontal scaling route previously dominated by Ethereum, the Solayer team has shown a completely different scaling approach in the infiniSVM whitepaper: by deeply optimizing SVM through hardware acceleration, creating a million-TPS blockchain network, essentially through a scaling solution that deeply integrates hardware and software.
Looking back at the history of blockchain scaling, the earliest on-chain scaling approach was to achieve scalability through parameter adjustments (larger blocks, shorter block times), but this approach easily encounters the Blockchain Trilemma; the subsequent layer2 scaling approach is a horizontal scaling method, with the core purpose of diverting transactions through layer2 (state channels, sidechains, Rollup, etc.), which undoubtedly sacrifices some global atomicity; while the hardware acceleration route explored by InfiniSVM is a brand new route that upgrades the scaling concept, breaking through performance bottlenecks by leveraging specialized hardware while maintaining a single global state;
Simply put: InfiniSVM's scaling method is not about simply optimizing algorithms, but by reconstructing the SVM execution environment through microservice architecture and hardware acceleration, entrusting some key tasks to specialized hardware, thereby achieving atomicity and consistency under high-load global states.
2) Following this train of thought, many people must be wondering why Solana's SVM execution environment needs hardware acceleration? From the data provided in the Solayer whitepaper, current Solana validator nodes already require a 3.1GHz+ CPU, 500GB+ high-speed memory, and 2.5TB+ high-throughput NVMe storage, and even with such high configuration, CPU utilization is only about 30% under high load, and P2P communication is approaching the 1Gbps bandwidth limit of consumer-grade networks.
The question is, if the CPU is not fully utilized, why would we need even stronger hardware? This actually reveals that Solana's current performance bottleneck is more in other areas beyond CPU computing power, such as: microservice processing architecture, which can isolate different processing stages and match more suitable hardware resources; specialized accelerators that can assign specific tasks like signatures to dedicated hardware, and so on.
You see, InfiniSVM is not simply upgrading hardware, but redesigning the entire execution environment, providing more specialized hardware optimization solutions for each bottleneck stage, like improving workshop production efficiency by reorganizing the entire production line's software and hardware, rather than simply increasing the number of workers;
3) So, what characteristics of InfiniSVM's hardware acceleration solution are worth sharing?
1. Distributed microservice processing architecture: Previously, Solana's monolithic transaction processing flow could be decomposed into multiple extended processing stages such as signature verification, deduplication, scheduling, and storage. In the InfiniSVM architecture, each stage can be processed independently, avoiding the major problem of "one stage being stuck causing the entire line to wait";
2. Intelligent transaction scheduling system: Originally, when Solana reads and writes transactions, transactions involving the same account had to be processed in queue. However, InfiniSVM has achieved the ability to prevent operations from interfering with each other even under the same account, thereby greatly improving its parallel processing capability. In other words, it further enhances fine-grained management capabilities;
3. RDMA low-latency communication technology: Normal node-to-node communication requires at least packaging, delivery, and unpacking steps. RDMA can directly transfer data from one node's memory to another node's memory, achieving a breakthrough in communication technology from milliseconds to microseconds, which can significantly reduce state access conflicts;
4. Distributed intelligent storage network: Previously, Solana had a 10MB limit for a single account. InfiniSVM adopts a distributed cloud storage solution, spreading data across different nodes, marking them as express lanes and slow lanes, thus breaking through capacity limitations and optimizing data access speed.
4) After explaining the technical upgrade route, many "what's the use" voices will likely emerge. Overall, with hardware acceleration, it can further enhance Solana's competitiveness in layer1 competition. Moreover, compared to Ethereum's layer2, which requires ecosystem application data support to demonstrate scaling achievements, this performance breakthrough of millions of TPS through hardware might only need access from a few vertical scenarios to directly prove its effectiveness, making the path shorter;
Looking from another perspective, take @jito_sol as an example. As a Solana MEV infrastructure, its ecosystem value in transaction order optimization, MEV extraction, and validator income. If it couldn't prove itself before the Solana meme craze, after the past year's meme heat, Jito's method of optimizing transaction processing has become an indispensable part.
In fact, Solayer's current technical positioning is similar. Its approach of making transactions perform better in the system is not clearly demonstrated by purely financial transaction scenarios, but if we consider the future large-scale implementation of PayFi, to perfectly support Solana as a high-throughput, low-latency payment settlement infrastructure, the TPS performance will be noticeably different. Additionally, there are DePIN ecosystems and complex game and AI Agent application scenarios, and so on.
In any case, looking a step ahead, defining the value of a technical infrastructure project is easier to see clearly than just looking from the current perspective of whether it has utility.
