1. A method of routing data packets in an interconnection network, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of data packets at a node in the interconnection network; analyzing, with a processor, content of the data packets to determine a source node and a destination node for the data packet; and performing distance-based arbitration at the node to determine an order for routing the data packets from the node to a next node in the interconnection network, the distance-based arbitration comprising probabilistic arbitration based on weights of different input requests at the node; wherein the probabilistic arbitration is based on nonlinear weights of one or more of the input requests for selected ones of the plurality of data packets, the nonlinear weights being associated with distance information regarding the destination node, wherein the distance information regarding the destination node comprises a hop count identifying a number of hops that separate the source node and the destination node in a given dimension, and wherein the nonlinear weights (w) are selected using the hop count (h) and a contention degree (C) according to the following equation: 
 w=C h .