Sui announced that its programmable off-chain channels achieved a peak throughput of roughly 40.6 million transactions per second during a live stress test aimed at emulating intense activity among AI agents.

Test Overview

The demonstration took place at Sui Basecamp in Singapore on a Wednesday, where the network opened upwards of ten thousand tunnels on its mainnet. Throughout the trial, the tunnels handled a mix of payment transfers, game moves, and chat messages. The measured peak of 40,614,180 TPS represents a substantial increase from the approximately 6.1 million TPS recorded in a comparable test conducted in July.

How Off-Chain Tunnels Work

Sui’s tunnels operate off the main blockchain, allowing rapid transaction processing without each operation being recorded immediately on-chain. When a tunnel is closed, the accumulated state is settled onto the Sui ledger. This architecture is intended to support workloads that demand ultra-high frequency, such as interactions between large numbers of autonomous AI agents, while preserving on-chain security for final settlement.

Focus on AI-Driven Activity

According to Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and chief product officer of Mysten Labs, the original developer of Sui, the network is being built for a future where millions of AI agents transact daily. He noted that traditional markets do not require multi-million transaction rates, but autonomous agents can generate such volume. The test therefore serves as a proof-of-concept that Sui can scale to meet the demands of AI-centric applications.

Independent Verification

The cryptographic security firm CertiK acted as an external auditor for the trial and is currently reviewing the data. A formal audit report is expected to be released in the coming days, providing an additional layer of confidence in the reported figures.

Why it matters

Achieving tens of millions of transactions per second, even in an off-chain context, demonstrates a significant step forward for blockchain scalability. If the performance can be consistently replicated and validated, Sui could become a viable substrate for AI-heavy use cases that traditional blockchains struggle to accommodate. The pending CertiK audit will be crucial for assessing the reliability of the results and for informing developers and investors about the practical implications of such extreme throughput.