The silver layer in the Medallion Architecture is crucial for enforcing schemas and conducting data quality checks. It also plays a significant role in reducing data storage complexity, latency, and redundancy, optimizing ETL throughput, and analytic query performance. Additionally, it preserves the original data's grain without aggregation and eliminates duplicate records. Understanding the distinct roles of the bronze, silver, and gold layers in the Medallion Architecture is essential for the Databricks Certified Data Engineer - Associate exam.