Altius HPEC¶
Altius HPEC (High-Performance Execution Coprocessor) is a specialized execution layer for latency-sensitive, high-throughput financial-market workloads that are impractical to run directly on a general-purpose chain. It executes operations off-chain at high speed, maintains its own fast state, and periodically settles verified results to Altius L1 — combining centralized-grade responsiveness with on-chain settlement guarantees.
HPEC is a purpose-built, non-EVM execution environment: rather than running general smart contracts, it implements a tightly optimized pipeline for the specific workloads it serves, which is what lets it hit far lower latencies and higher throughput than a general VM.
Highlights¶
- High-throughput, low-latency execution of high-volume financial operations off the chain's critical path.
- Dual-state model — a fast working state for execution, anchored to custody and settlement on Altius L1. See Architecture.
- Verifiable settlement — results are committed to the L1 in batches, with on-chain contracts enforcing custody, state commitments, and user protections such as forced exit. See Settlement to L1.
- Operationally robust — multi-node clustering with leader election, data availability and historical indexing, and built-in simulation and chaos testing.
How it fits the platform¶
HPEC is the platform's performance layer. It connects to Altius L1 as its settlement L1 over standard JSON-RPC, executing workloads off-chain and anchoring the results on-chain. Users retain on-chain guarantees over their assets even though execution happens off-chain.
Continue to Architecture, or see Settlement to L1 for how off-chain results are anchored on-chain.