Nix supports distributed builds, where a local Nix installation can forward Nix builds to other machines over the network. This allows multiple builds to be performed in parallel (thus improving performance) and allows Nix to perform multi-platform builds in a semi-transparent way. For instance, if you perform a build for a powerpc-darwin on an i686-linux machine, Nix can automatically forward the build to a powerpc-darwin machine, if available.