Artificial intelligence may not be running out of ideas, but it may be approaching the practical limits of electrons. As communication becomes increasingly expensive, the future of computing may depend less on processing information and more on moving it efficiently.
As artificial intelligence pushes computation towards new physical limits, the future of digital infrastructure may depend less on moving electrons and increasingly on guiding light.
The global race for artificial intelligence is often framed as a competition of scale: larger models, more parameters, faster GPUs. Yet beneath this visible layer lies a quieter crisis. As AI systems grow, the energy required to move data between chips, racks and clusters is beginning to exceed the energy needed for computation itself.
