By Orkun Külçe @orkunkl
Are they the same contract that exist across multiple chains that somehow share state?
Orkun Külçe @orkunklRight now, multi-chain contracts refers to the idea that you can instantiate the same contract on multiple chains. They are independent technically but their development can be re-used.
Once there is Stargate (Cosmos SDK 0.39+) with IBC support, those contracts get the ability to talk to each other with IBC. Then they are still independent but can interact.