Anza’s SIMD-0675 would schedule Solana validators by geography

Solana’s validators take turns producing blocks, and right now the order of those turns has nothing to do with where anyone actually lives. Anza’s research team wants to shrink that toll. Its proposal, SIMD-0675, would line up validators that sit close to each other so they produce blocks back to back. In a simulation built on real mainnet data, the change cut block production handover delays by 53%. What Anza is proposing The work comes from Anza researchers Quentin Kniep and Roger Wattenhofer. They authored two Solana Improvement Documents, known as SIMDs, which are the formal channel for suggesting protocol changes. The two documents are SIMD-0674 and SIMD-0675. Both were opened on approximately 29 September 2026. Together, they describe a system where validators register their geographic location on-chain. The network then uses those locations to build what the authors call a geo-aware leader schedule. Every handover involves some waiting. The incoming leader needs the previous leader’s work before it can build on top of it, and distance stretches that wait. The current schedule is random with respect to geography. The proposed one groups validators into geographic bins and run...