Anza research team members Quentin Kniep and Roger Wattenhofer have introduced two Solana Improvement Documents (SIMDs), designated SIMD-0674 and SIMD-0675, to alter how Solana validators take turns producing blocks.
Under the current system, the order in which validators produce blocks is random and independent of physical location. The new proposal outlines a geo-aware leader schedule where validators register their geographic location on-chain, allowing the network to group validators situated close to each other so they can produce blocks back to back.
According to the proposal, each geographic bin is capped at a maximum of three consecutive leaders, with a full run through a region lasting approximately 2.4 seconds before the schedule moves to another area. The proposal maintains that stake weights and slot allocations will remain unchanged, meaning validators keep their original share of slots while the network merely reshuffles when those slots occur.
However, the design includes a significant requirement: validators that choose not to register their location would be excluded from block production and voting.
Simulations using mainnet data from epoch 1038 involving 661 validators indicated that the geo-aware model reduced mean leader handover latency from 36.2 milliseconds down to 17.0 milliseconds, marking a 53% improvement.
The timing of these proposals coincides with the development of Alpenglow, Solana's upcoming consensus protocol designed to target finality of around 150 milliseconds. With a finality target measured in the low hundreds of milliseconds, handover latencies of tens of milliseconds represent a substantial portion of the overall time budget.
SIMD-0675 advanced to a \u201cready for review\u201d status on September 30, 2026, while SIMD-0674 remains in draft.
