Wormhole Inks Partnership With AMD Amid Zero-Knowledge Embrace

Wormhole, the cross-chain interoperability protocol, is teaming up with AMD, the major semiconductor and computer processor manufacturer, to realize its zero-knowledge roadmap.

Announced on Feb. 21, the partnership will allow Wormhole and projects operating within Wormhole’s ecosystem to access AMD’s enterprise-grade Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware accelerators.

The hardware, including the AMD Alveo U55C and U250 adaptable accelerator cards, can specialize in zero-knowledge (ZK) proof generation — with the partnership following Wormhole announcing its ZK-focused development roadmap on Feb. 1.

“This collaboration addresses the pressing demand for specialized hardware in the evolving decentralized computing sector,” Wormhole said. “AMD will also lend its deep hardware acceleration expertise to help deliver speed and scalability to multichain applications being built with Wormhole.”

Wormhole and AMD will also launch zero-knowledge light clients facilitating cross-chain messaging across more than 30 blockchain networks in the coming months as part of the deal.

Wormhole’s dominance

Wormhole is a leading cross-chain interoperability protocol, claiming to have facilitated the largest number of messages sent between chains all-time at 1.01B, in addition to the greatest value of cross-chain transfers at $39.8B.

In the past 24 hours, Wormhole processed 101,804 cross-chain messages worth a combined volume of $20.9M.

The majority of Wormhole messages are sent between the Ethereum, Sui, and Solana networks. Ethereum comprised the source network for 41.3% of messages sent between networks over the past seven days, followed by Sui with 23.5%, and Solana with 11.6%. Ethereum was also the top target network receiving 31.1% of transactions, while 25.7% of messages were sent to Sui, and 19.5% went to Solana.

Wormhole’s zero-knowledge roadmap

Wormhole is seeking to reduce its reliance on centralized node operators by shifting its focus to providing a trustless solution powered by zero-knowledge proofs.

Currently, cross-chain messages sent via Wormhole are validated when at least 13 of its 19 centralized “Guardians” agree on the state and execution of a message, with the Guardians comprising a centralized trust mechanism underpinning the protocol.

Moving forward, Wormhole’s plans to enable permissionless message verification through its zero-knowledge embrace, in addition to permissionless integrations for new blockchains.

“The next step toward… is decentralizing Wormhole’s verification layer and moving toward a trust-minimized model using zero-knowledge technology,” Wormhole said. “ZK enables a new option for trustlessly verifying messages sent via Wormhole. ZK also reduces trust in the protocol, enabling stronger security guarantees to multichain apps and users.”

Wormhole’s ZK roadmap outlined three core steps, starting with onboarding zero-knowledge cryptography experts, followed by collaborating with “a strategic hardware provider” — now revealed as AMD — to source hardware accelerators, and rolling out zero-knowledge-powered light clients.