ZkSync just pulled off something iconic with the Airbender prover: Using a professional-grade GPU (NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000), it managed to generate a zero-knowledge proof (ZK proof) for an Ethereum block in under 12 seconds, in real-time. Ethereum currently produces a block roughly every 12 seconds. So, this means: 'Real-time' means the proof generation speed keeps up with the block production speed. Previously, generating a proof for one block typically required dozens or even hundreds of GPUs. Now, just one is enough. Why is this important for Ethereum? In the future, Ethereum's mainnet might upgrade toward zkVM: Currently: Every validator node has to re-execute all the transactions in a block to verify them. In the future: Someone can generate a tiny proof, and the entire network only needs to verify this proof (which is super fast), without every node re-executing all the transactions. The benefits are obvious: Nodes can be lighter, the entry barrier lower, and decentralization stronger. At the same time, scalability will improve significantly. This is one of the most critical parts of Ethereum's long-term roadmap.