Michael Wilkerson
It is difficult to overstate the sea change that the world is facing as a result of the rapid acceleration of advanced computing technologies and their applications—especially in AI, robotics, quantum computing, and micro-nuclear power. Thanks to a generation of human invention and innovation, the long-imagined world of science fiction writers is now here. A consequence of this faster-than-expected advent is that world leaders are scrambling to ensure their nations are not left behind.
Advances in AI and other computing-based technology have gone parabolic. The computational power of the world’s 500 largest supercomputers has grown from one teraflop in 1995 to 10 exaflops in 2025. These strange-sounding figures represent an astronomical increase in calculations per second amounting to an 18 million-time increase in computing power over three decades. Already a $60 billion revenue market today, the supercomputing market is projected to grow by 7.5 percent per year over the next decade, to nearly $125 billion by 2035.
The U.S., China, and other competing countries are now in a Cold War 2.0 arms race. Their leaders firmly believe that whichever country dominates AI and advanced computing will have a substantial strategic, economic, and military advantage over its adversaries.
The late-stage Cold War arms race initiated by President Ronald Reagan against the USSR in the early 1980s was so expensive that it eventually led the Soviet Union to the edge of bankruptcy and brought down the Communist regime. Today, both the spending required and the emergent risks of the AI and computing wars threaten to make the stakes of that era feel like child’s play.
No comments:
Post a Comment