Even if a leap-hour or other reform proves beneficial, some sectors—especially financial systems—must consider how future technologies and infrastructure might alter feasibility in a far-future context.

Leap seconds have been added since the 1970s to keep UTC in sync with Earth's rotation, but they disrupt computing, finance, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure.

There is a growing concern about a potential negative leap second as early as 2035, driven by fluctuations in Earth's rotation that could force UTC to drop a second to stay aligned, posing unprecedented risks to critical systems.

Different organizations currently handle leap seconds in varied ways, such as Google's time smear and exchanges adjusting trading times, which can create discontinuities in otherwise continuous systems.

CGPM member states are set to vote on the leap second/alternative time proposal at their 28th meeting near Paris in October.

One proposed alternative is a leap hour, which would occur only after a one-hour drift and is argued to be more manageable and familiar to implement than a leap second.

Aligning time after a drift of an hour would not be expected in the near term and could be less problematic than a leap second, though technical challenges would remain.

There is talk of scrapping the leap second as early as October, with a longer-term plan to end by 2035 at the latest due to the risks associated with a negative leap second.

A formal proposal exists to replace leap seconds with a leap hour, realigning time after a 3,600-second discrepancy between atomic time (UTC) and Earth's rotation.