What happens when hundreds of AI agents need to coordinate without a central controller?

In this article, I break down how to architect systems where swarms of agents collaborate reliably even when: - Connectivity is hostile (tunnels, interference, dead zones) - Bandwidth is scarce and streaming raw sensor data is impossible - Resilience is non-negotiable and the system must survive node failures

TL;DR - Run specialized Small Language Models (SLMs) on the edge so devices make local, safe decisions without waiting on the cloud - Let devices gossip summaries, not raw data, use peer-to-peer overlays for soft state, and reserve consensus only for what must be globally correct - Use CRDT-backed shared memory tiers so hundreds of agents can drift, sync, and still converge on a consistent world model