AI World Report Palo Alto, CA Dec 2025 The Search for New Scaling Laws Accelerates
By mid-2026, the industry will more openly acknowledge that traditional silicon scaling is no longer sufficient to meet AI’s exponential compute demands. While the “end of Moore’s Law” has been discussed for years, 2026 marks the moment when the conversation shifts from theory to urgency. Expect broader exploration of alternative compute modalities and increased discussion of a true post-silicon roadmap, with optical computing emerging as a leading contender to break today’s performance-per-watt ceiling.