Polygon boosts AI agent payments to 11 million operations per second
Polygon has introduced Agent Pay Channels, a system that allows AI agents to pay for data, API calls, computing and other digital services as they use them. In tests, an infrastructure of 25 payment hubs processed more than 11 million verified payment updates per second.
The company explains that traditional payment systems are poorly suited to AI agents, which may interact with several services and make hundreds of small purchases while completing a single task. For example, an agent may separately pay for access to a language model, data and a specialized tool.
Payments run through x402
The new system works together with the x402 protocol. A user first deposits funds into a payment channel on Polygon, after which an AI agent can send signed payment requests as it uses different services. The provider receives confirmation of payment and releases the next portion of data or computing resources.
In tests, each payment update was confirmed in about 20 microseconds, excluding network latency. Not every operation is immediately recorded onchain: payments are grouped together and periodically settled through Polygon.
This approach allows agents to pay for services at the moment they use them without having to pre-fund a separate account with every provider. Polygon says that by increasing the number of payment hubs, the system could potentially process more than 100 million payment updates per second.
Why AI agents need their own payments
AI agents increasingly work with several services rather than just one. While completing a single task, a program may separately pay for access to a language model, data, an API or a specialized tool. There can be hundreds of such operations, making traditional subscriptions or one-time payments inconvenient.
Payments allow an agent to pay for each service as it is used without locking funds in advance with dozens of different providers. This requires cheap and fast transactions that can be processed almost automatically and at high volume — the kind of use case Polygon, x402 and other projects are now building infrastructure for.
Block is also bringing instant BTC payments to AI agents.
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