Sui’s programmable offchain tunnels have achieved a staggering 40.6 million transactions per second during a live stress test designed to explicitly simulate the kind of intense, high-frequency activity expected to occur between autonomous artificial intelligence agents in the near future. The development marks a massive technological leap for the layer-1 blockchain, far eclipsing previous performance metrics and showcasing the network’s readiness for next-generation digital economies.
According to announcements from Sui representatives, the network’s programmable offchain tunnels successfully processed more than 40 million transactions per second during the live demonstration. This performance shatters the previous record set by the network just a few months prior in July. The high-stakes live test, which was conducted on Wednesday at the Sui Basecamp developer and ecosystem conference held in Singapore, ultimately peaked at an astonishing 40,614,180 transactions per second. For comparison, a similar stress test conducted back in July yielded a throughput of about 6.1 million transactions per second, meaning the latest infrastructure upgrades and network optimizations have driven an exponential leap in processing capability over a very short period.
Under the hood, these unprecedented transaction volumes were handled entirely offchain through Sui tunnels. These specialized programmable channels are engineered to operate independently while maintaining cryptographic security, only settling down to the primary Sui blockchain layer once the channels are officially closed. During Wednesday’s live demonstration at Sui Basecamp, more than 10,000 individual tunnels were simultaneously opened on the Sui mainnet. The simulated activity running through these channels was diverse and complex, spanning a wide array of real-world use cases including high-volume payments, interactive gaming environments, and instant chat applications, thereby proving the versatility of the offchain architecture under heavy, multifaceted loads.
The core motivation behind engineering these tunnels is to build an infrastructure capable of managing high-frequency activity without requiring every single minor action to be processed directly on the main blockchain. Traditional layer-1 networks often struggle with network congestion and rising gas fees when faced with millions of concurrent micro-transactions. Sui’s offchain solution aims to bypass these limitations entirely, making it uniquely suited for environments where devices, applications, or automated systems need to exchange data and value thousands of times per second.
This architectural focus is driven largely by the anticipated explosion of autonomous digital entities operating on the web. Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and chief product officer at Mysten Labs, the original contributor and core development team behind the Sui blockchain, emphasized the shift in paradigm that these systems require. Discussing the philosophy behind the network’s design, Abiodun noted that Sui is specifically built for the moment when millions of artificial intelligence agents are transacting every single day. He further elaborated on the stark contrast between human interaction speeds and machine speeds, pointing out that no traditional market in the world requires six million transactions per second, let alone forty million, because people simply do not move that fast. However, digital agents do.
As blockchain ecosystems increasingly race to capture market share related to the artificial intelligence boom, network security and data verification remain paramount. To ensure complete transparency and credibility regarding the extraordinary performance figures reported during the Singapore conference, the network enlisted independent verification. CertiK, a prominent blockchain security and auditing firm, served as an independent auditor during the live demonstration. Representatives from CertiK closely monitored the stress test, and the firm is currently reviewing all the test data collected from the event. An official audit report detailing the findings and verifying the 40.6 million transactions per second benchmark is expected to be published in the coming days.
