Qubic’s Hardware Endgame: The 2TB Era Begins

2024 was a year of transformation. Qubic’s Full Nodes, the backbone of its blockchain, achieved 2TB of RAM, fully operational across the network. With this upgrade, Qubic maintains instant finality under increased workload, supports more scalable smart contracts, and lays the groundwork for true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Why 2TB, though? This is a story of ticks, ledgers, the power of in-memory execution, and the choice of CPU over GPU. 

The Journey: 250GB to 2TB in Four Moves

The milestones of 2024 were deliberate, each one building momentum. Step by step, Qubic’s Full Nodes evolved:

• March 6, 2024: The foundation - 250GB RAM. A solid starting point for growth.

• June 5, 2024: Capacity doubled to 500GB RAM, giving nodes breathing room for rising workloads.

• September 4, 2024: Crossing into 1TB RAM territory, the network expanded its ability to host complex smart contracts and larger datasets.

• December 4, 2024: The final move. The endgame - 2TB RAM, unlocking performance levels that redefine what blockchain can handle.

What 2TB Means for Qubic

The shift to 2TB RAM reshapes how the network processes, scales, and supports innovation.

1. Real-Time Finality

In Qubic, transactions and smart contracts are processed entirely in memory, bypassing the latency inherent in disk-based storage systems. This design allows for real-time finality, where operations are finalised immediately without needing repeated access to slower storage mediums. Occasionally, snapshots of the Spectrum File (balances and transfers) and Universe File (asset data) are committed to disk for archival purposes, ensuring historical data is preserved without burdening memory.

The network archives historical data from previous epochs rather than keeping it all in active memory. This reduces memory overhead without sacrificing access to older transaction records, which can still be retrieved through archive nodes or RPC queries. Imagine your smartphone slowing down because it’s filled with photos. By offloading them to a hard drive, you free up space and keep the phone running smoothly while still having access to your photos when needed.

This memory management approach ensures Qubic nodes can handle real-time workloads efficiently while maintaining optimal performance.

The significance of 2TB RAM lies in its ability to handle the growing number of contracts and transactions in memory. As Bill Schreckenstein, Qubic’s ecosystem representative for North America, explained, traditional blockchains rely on disk-based validators, which introduce latency due to frequent disk reads and writes. By contrast, Qubic's in-memory execution removes these bottlenecks, enabling extremely fast transaction processing. This is the backbone of Qubic’s ability to deliver millions of transfers per second without the need for Layer 2 solutions.

To paraphrase Come-from-Beyond: RAM and CPU power are the key to developing true AI. This is why Qubic is based on CPU instead of GPU. On the computing side, it’s mainly to achieve instant finality and keep the ledger in memory.

2. Tick Durations and Fast Consensus

Ticks - Qubic’s name for the intervals in which transactions are validated - are the heartbeat of the system. But shorter tick durations demand more memory to store and process data in real-time.

During tests with 0.2-second ticks, the importance of RAM became clear. Without sufficient memory, bottlenecks form, slowing consensus. With 2TB RAM, Qubic’s nodes handle these rapid bursts of activity seamlessly, delivering consensus at a speed that sets it apart from other networks.

3. Smart Contracts That Scale

Every smart contract deployed on Qubic uses 1GB of RAM for storage. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of contracts, and the need for 2TB becomes obvious. This scalability means developers aren’t constrained by memory limitations - they can build ambitious, complex applications knowing the infrastructure is ready to handle them.

Whether it’s AI-driven applications or real-time data processing, Qubic’s Full Nodes are built to handle the demands of the future.

Why CPUs, Not GPUs?

Qubic’s choice to prioritise CPUs over GPUs is a deliberate strategy. GPUs are great for parallel tasks but struggle with the deterministic precision needed for ledger processing. CPUs, on the other hand, excel at handling the exacting demands of Qubic’s architecture.

This decision extends to mining, too. Through Useful Proof of Work (UPoW), Qubic’s miners use CPU power for meaningful tasks that have real-world value, like training AI. It’s efficient, purposeful, and perfectly aligned with the network’s vision.

The Challenges of Reaching 2TB

Getting to 2TB wasn’t easy - it required a coordinated effort across the entire Qubic ecosystem:

• Hardware Upgrades: Node operators needed to invest in cutting-edge systems, including AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX, 2TB RAM, and 1Gbps connections.

• Scaling Stability: Each step in the journey - 250GB, 500GB, 1TB - brought its own set of challenges, from managing transitions to maintaining network performance.

• Community Collaboration: Synchronising upgrades across hundreds of operators was a massive undertaking, but it demonstrated the strength of the Qubic community.

What Comes Next After 2TB?

While 2TB RAM is a huge milestone, it’s only the beginning. Here’s what’s on the horizon:

1. AGI’s Evolution

The hardware is ready. Now, the focus turns to enabling AGI to grow and adapt autonomously. As CFB explained:

“From June 5th (2024), there will be zero developers creating true AI - it will be creating itself. My main job will be making sure AI has as many possibilities as possible, so we don’t limit its self-development trajectory.”

This is a vision already taking shape. With Qubic’s 2TB architecture, AI has the memory and processing power to evolve in ways no blockchain has supported before.

2. Smarter Applications

From decentralised AI smart contracts to IoT-driven systems, Qubic is ready to support the next wave of innovation. Developers now have the tools to push boundaries like never before.

3. Why Qubic Doesn’t Need L2 Solutions

Other blockchains rely on Layer 2 rollups to manage speed and scalability. Qubic, with its in-memory execution, eliminates this need entirely. By keeping transactions and smart contracts in memory, Qubic bypasses the latency that rollups aim to reduce, offering main-layer performance that rivals even the fastest L2 systems.

4. Unlimited Scaling

With 2TB RAM, Qubic can onboard more users, handle more transactions, and support more applications. The network is ready for whatever comes next.

A Thank You to the Community

The journey to 2TB wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication and effort of Qubic’s Full Node operators. From upgrading hardware to ensuring stability during transitions, your contributions have been instrumental in achieving this milestone. This success belongs to the entire community.

The 2TB Era: A Beginning, Not an End

Calling 2TB the “end game” is misleading. Yes, it marks the culmination of a year-long effort, but it also serves as the starting point for Qubic’s next chapter. With this hardware in place, Qubic is ready to redefine what blockchain, AI, and decentralised computing can achieve.

From instant finality to AGI, from smart contracts to global-scale applications, the future of decentralised computing starts here.

Are you ready to build what’s next? Qubic is.