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3️⃣ Next-Generation Architecture — JAM

→ Read the main article: JAM — A Scalable Trustless Virtual Machine

Key Takeaways​

  1. JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine) is Polkadot's next-generation Relay Chain design, replacing the current Relay Chain.
  2. It combines the smart contract generality of Ethereum with the heterogeneous sharding scalability of Polkadot.
  3. Target throughput is 850 MB/s (theoretical > 3.4 million TPS), far exceeding Ethereum 2.0 (1.3 MB/s) and Sui/Aptos (100 MB/s).
  4. Asynchronous interaction model: messages and tokens complete send/receive within the same 6-second execution cycle, but there is no immediate return path — this is a deliberate design trade-off for performance.

Key Technical Points​

  • Join and Accumulate execute on-chain; Collect and Refine execute off-chain → reduces on-chain computation load
  • Uses Coretime as a compute resource metric analogous to Gas
  • Plans for 350 JAM cores × 6-second execution per core × 5 MB input per core

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