- Polygon (MATIC) is seeking to accelerate ZK development through custom hardware.
- As part of these efforts, the company has announced a substantial investment.
- The project promises to be a boon to Polygon’s aggregated architecture.
Over the past year, Polygon (MATIC) Labs has espoused a new vision for its eponymous Ethereum scaling project: linking all of Web3 on top of the Layer 1 chain. At the core of Polygon’s new vision is zero-knowledge technology, which it has tipped as the end game of Ethereum scaling.
In line with this new roadmap, the project has continued to push the boundaries of what is possible with ZK technology, from proving system improvements to the development of new zkVMs. In the latest instance, the team has unveiled a substantial hardware investment to further accelerate the development of ZK technology.
Polygon (MATIC) Labs Bets on Fabric Cryptography’s Chips
Polygon (MATIC) Labs is seeking to accelerate ZK development through custom hardware. On Tuesday, September 10, Polygon (MATIC) Labs disclosed that it would be investing $5 million to acquire crypto-focused chips called Verifiable Processing Units (VPUs) from recently launched crypto startup Fabric Cryptography.
Explaining the rationale for the investment, Polygon (MATIC) Labs stressed that ZK’s main constraint remained proof generation and verification efficiency. The team explained that this meant ZK software would always be limited by the hardware it ran on.
While Polygon (MATIC) Labs asserted that hardware limitations had led to impressive software optimizations, citing its Plonky2 proving system, which optimized fast recursive proofs for consumer-grade devices, the firm contended that more was still needed.
"the long-term goals for ZK require something beyond faster proving—it requires real-time proving. And to achieve this while keeping proof-generation low-cost and practical, a new kind of hardware is needed," the team wrote.
According to Polygon (MATIC) Labs, Fabric’s VPU is the required hardware, tipping it to accelerate ZK development as GPU advancements did for AI.
A Boon for Polygon’s Ambitions
According to Polygon Labs, the recent investment would “accelerate” all ZK-powered Polygon protocols, starting with VPUs for the Plonky2 and Plonky3 proving systems integral to the AggLayer, the interoperability solution at the core of Polygon’s proposed aggregated chain architecture.
Version 1 of the AggLayer launched in February 2024, offering connected chains access to the unified bridge. According to developers, however, the protocol is still far away from its end game, which will allow users to experience the ecosystem of connected chains like a single blockchain with near-instant cross-chain interactions and atomic transactions.
Polygon (MATIC) Labs tips the efficiency gains from Fabric’s VPUs to accelerate the achievement of this final form.
On the Flipside
- Fabric’s VPUs have yet to be battle-tested.
- In August 2024, Fabric announced a series A funding of $33 million that also saw participation from Polygon Labs.
Why This Matters
Many have tipped ZK as the end game of scaling, but efficiency limitations have often discouraged projects from exploring the technology or, in the case of ZK-focused teams like Polygon, maximizing its potential. As such, Fabric’s VPUs promise to be a game changer.
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