https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00183

Lattica is a communication tool that solves internet barriers like firewalls. It lets scattered computers securely connect and work together to run powerful AI, creating a global, open network.

Introduction: The Missing Substrate

The frontier of AI has been dominated by datacenters — racks of GPUs, high-bandwidth fabrics, and centralized schedulers. Yet intelligence is not confined to datacenters. Laptops, edge devices, volunteer GPUs, and research clusters all generate enormous latent capacity.

The problem is not hardware. The problem is communication.

Today’s distributed frameworks assume stable, centralized clusters with clean networking (Ray, Megatron, PyTorch Distributed). But outside datacenters, devices sit behind NATs, firewalls, and inconsistent links. Attempts like Hivemind showed peer-to-peer training is possible, but fragile.

Lattica is our answer: a cross-NAT, peer-to-peer communication framework purpose-built for AI. It combines NAT traversal, distributed hash table(DHT), decentralized content delivery Network(DCDN), and RPC framework built on libp2p streams.

With Lattica, AI workloads can be executed seamlessly over permissionless, heterogeneous, and globally distributed device swarms.

System Architecture

Lattica is structured as a layered peer-to-peer stack, built in Rust on top of libp2p, with SDKs in Python and beyond. The system architecture is structured into the following three layers:

Communication Layer — Connectivity and Transport
- Multi-protocol Transport: Supports TCP, QUIC, and WebSocket for flexible peer connectivity.
- Advanced NAT Traversal: Employs hole punching when possible; seamlessly falls back to relay-based routing otherwise.
- Encryption & Identity: All streams are secured via Noise or TLS handshakes, ensuring both authenticity and confidentiality.
Feature Layer — Distributed Services and Protocols
- Content-addressed storage: Blocks identified by CIDs, distributed via DHT, and exchanged through BitSwap.
- Messaging & Event Distribution: Implements Pub/Sub for efficient message dissemination.
- RPC Framework: Supports request–response and streaming communication over libp2p streams, enabling structured data exchange and remote procedure calls.
Application Layer — Multi-language SDK for Diverse Use Cases
- Exposes the underlying P2P features to various applications through a high-level SDK.
- Supports multiple scenes: AI Inference/Reinforcement Learning/Decentralized Content Delivery Networks

These layers form a complete protocol stack for decentralized AI, covering connection, consistency, and computation.

Lattica stack: from secure transport to high-level decentralized AI services.

Application Scenes

Lattica is not abstract — it supports concrete decentralized AI deployments

Multi-Protocol NAT Traversal: Establishes robust peer-to-peer connectivity even in restrictive networks.
Decentralized Content Delivery Network (DCDN): Distributes content-addressed blocks via DHT and BitSwap, enabling an efficient and fault-tolerant model for data sharing.
Reinforcement Learning (RL): Supports decentralized multi-agent learning with distributed state sharing and coordination.
AI Inference: Facilitates low-latency, resilient inference across heterogeneous nodes, including edge devices and volunteer GPUs.

Lattica in action: four scenarios for decentralized AI.

Evaluation

We evaluated Lattica on two axes: NAT traversal and RPC throughput.

NAT Traversal: Achieved ~70% direct connectivity across diverse NATs; remainder relayed. Comparable to libp2p baselines but tuned for AI workloads.
RPC Throughput:
- Local: ~10k QPS for 128B payloads, ~850 QPS for 256KB.
- Same-region WAN: ~3k QPS (128B), ~280 QPS (256KB).
- Inter-continental WAN: ~1.2k QPS (128B), ~110 QPS (256KB).

Performance is robust in LAN/WAN settings and remains usable across continents — a critical feature for global volunteer networks.

Machine configuration:

4 cores, 8 GB RAM

Bandwidth: 10 Gbps internal network, 10 Gbps (up to 100 Gbps) external network

Network scenario	128B payload	256KB payload
Local(same host)	10000	850
Same region(LAN)	8000	600
Same region(WAN)	3000	280
Inter-continent(WAN)	1200	110

Conclusion: The Substrate for Sovereign AI

Lattica integrates connectivity, consistency, and content movement into a unified communication fabric.

It transforms devices once considered “out of reach” — laptops behind firewalls, sensors in the field, volunteers on weak ISPs — into first-class participants in AI inference and training.

By abstracting away NAT traversal, synchronization, and streaming, it lays the foundation for sovereign, resilient, and scalable decentralized AI systems.

The internet gave us a web of information.

Lattica offers the web of intelligence.

An infinite substrate for decentralized AI.

Technical Terms Glossary

Technical Term	Wikipedia Link
Peer-to-Peer (P2P)	Wikipedia - P2P
NVLink	Wikipedia - NVLink
NAT Traversal / Hole Punching	Wikipedia - NAT Traversal
DHT (Distributed Hash Table)	Wikipedia - DHT
DCDN (Decentralized Content Delivery Network)	Wikipedia - CDN
BitSwap	Wikipedia - IPFS
Megatron	Wikipedia - MegatronML