Sui's Offchain Tunnels Hit 40.6 Million TPS in Live AI Agent Stress Test
Key Takeaways
- •Sui's offchain tunnel infrastructure peaked at 40,614,180 transactions per second during a live stress test, setting a new throughput record for the network.
- •The demonstration at Sui Basecamp in Singapore marked a more than sixfold increase over the roughly 6.1 million TPS recorded in a similar July test.
- •More than 10,000 tunnels were opened on Sui mainnet during the test, with activity spanning payments, games, and chat applications.
- •Throughput was measured at the tunnel layer rather than as individual onchain transactions, with blockchain settlement recorded when tunnels are closed.
- •CertiK served as independent auditor and is reviewing the test data, with a report expected in the coming days.
Layer-1 blockchain Sui said its programmable offchain tunnels processed more than 40 million transactions per second during a live stress test designed to simulate high-frequency activity between artificial intelligence agents, marking a new throughput record for the network.
The demonstration, conducted Wednesday at Sui Basecamp in Singapore, peaked at 40,614,180 transactions per second, up from roughly 6.1 million TPS achieved in a similar test carried out in July — a more than sixfold jump between the two runs. Sui published the results in an official blog post and announced them through its X account.
The transactions were processed offchain through Sui tunnels, programmable channels that settle to the Sui blockchain when closed. More than 10,000 tunnels were opened on Sui mainnet during the test, with activity spanning payments, games and chat applications.
According to Sui, the tunnels are built to handle high-frequency workloads, including interactions between AI agents, without requiring every transaction to be processed directly onchain. The design allows large volumes of activity to flow through the channels, with settlement recorded on the blockchain when a tunnel is closed.
That architecture is central to how the record should be read: throughput was measured at the tunnel layer rather than as individual onchain transactions, meaning the benchmark gauges how much high-frequency activity the network can channel, with the chain itself anchoring settlement. For a blockchain positioning itself around agent-driven workloads, the test served as a demonstration of capacity at a scale far beyond human-initiated activity.
“Sui is built for the moment when millions of AI agents are transacting every day,” said Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and chief product officer at Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui.
“No market in the world needs 6 million transactions per second, let alone 40 million: people just don’t move that fast. Agents do,” he added.
CertiK served as an independent auditor during the demonstration and is reviewing the test data, with a report expected in the coming days. With Sui having published the results itself, the forthcoming report is expected to put the figures behind the record through independent review.
