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Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., the lunar module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, stands next to a United States flag July 20, 1969 during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the surface of the Moon.

NASA | Newsmakers | Hulton Archive | Getty Images

If we were to fall asleep today and not wake up for another 35 years, we’d wake up feeling underwhelmed at the pace of innovation.

That’s according to Robert Blumofe, chief technology officer of web security firm Akamai, who thinks the world may be “wildly disappointed” by progress made on the web in the next three decades.

Akamai, a content delivery network, helps internet users access web content fast.

Tuesday marked 35 years to the day since renowned computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for what would eventually be known as the “World Wide Web.”

But Blumofe, who noted he’s still a believer in the web and modern technology, cautioned we could be in for stagnation.

“The next 35 years might be wildly disappointing,” Blumofe told CNBC in an interview last week. “I take a bit of a contrarian view on this.”

Blumofe compared the current state of the web today to the aerospace industry in the 1960s. Back then, he said, there was huge innovation with the arrival of the Boeing 747 and the first moon landing.

Today, aerospace innovation has stalled, he added.

“All that was in the 60s and 70s,” Blumofe noted. “If someone had gone asleep in 1975 and then woke up and looked at aerospace today they would be wildly disappointed.”

“The planes aren’t any bigger. They’re not any faster,” he said.

‘Moore’s law is over’

Blumofe said it’s entirely possible the world is heading in that same direction with telecommunications.

“We may have exhausted the steep innovation curve,” he said. “That curve may have passed us by. We may be heading for a plateau.”

“Moore’s law is over,” Blumofe added, referring to the theory that the number of components on a single chip doubles every two years at minimal cost.

Network cables are plugged in a server room.

Michael Bocchieri | Getty Images

Blumofe said much of the world now has connectivity, and modern displays on smartphones and TVs aren’t getting more exciting beyond picture quality.

Still, many companies are now experimenting with folding and rolling screens.

While Blumofe web stagnation is a “possibility,” he’s still hopeful innovation won’t plateau.

In fact, Blumofe previously told CNBC he thinks the web could eventually become the realm of artificial intelligence-powered agents — with humans no longer using the web but going through AI agents instead.

Dangers of generative AI

The one big exception to the rule for Blumofe at the moment is AI, which he noted could make major strides in the coming decade with the advent of generative AI algorithms.

But even then, Blumofe said, AI might need to take a step back before it makes another significant leap forward.

He cited the dangers of generative AI models when it comes to copyright infringement as an example.

Chintan Patel, chief technology officer of enterprise tech firm Cisco in the U.K., disagrees that innovation for telecommunications and tech more broadly is set to plateau.

“The combination and speed of technological development is countering any plateau in innovation,” Patel told CNBC.

“The pace of change has never been faster — development and innovation is occurring at pace, in different places and geographies.” 

The combination and speed of technological development is countering any plateau in innovation.

Chintan Patel

CTO of Cisco in the U.K.

Developments in AI “are fueling a new era of innovation,” he added, via email.

“The developer and creators of tomorrow have access to a whole set of capabilities, which the inventors of a few years ago could only dream off,” Patel said.

Brennan Smith, vice president of technology at Ookla, also doesn’t think the limits of innovation have been exhausted.

“When thinking of what the next 35 years will bring, it’ll be a new era of creativity unlocked by generative AI, combined with a medium that blends the digital and physical world seamlessly,” Smith told CNBC.

“We may still read words on a document no different than a stone tablet, but we will be surrounded by entirely new experiences which make our existing world even richer and more vibrant,” Smith added.

However, he said “enormous amounts of bandwidth” will be required to support future web experiences.

Last week, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, told CNBC his top predictions for the future of his creation. He said he expects everyone to have their own personal AI assistants and greater ownership of data, wresting it from the hands of Big Tech platforms.

Berners-Lee also said regulatory agencies could in the future decide to break up a big tech firm, particularly in the age of AI. However, he said it’s unclear at this stage which tech giant would be forced to split up.

“Things are changing so quickly. AI is changing very, very quickly. There are monopolies in AI. Monopolies changed pretty quickly back in the web,” Berners-Lee told CNBC.

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Airbnb CEO Chesky says ChatGPT isn’t ‘quite robust enough’ to integrate into travel app

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Airbnb CEO Chesky says ChatGPT isn't 'quite robust enough' to integrate into travel app

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on new product updates, integrating AI and state of AI tech race

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said he wants to integrate ChatGPT artificial intelligence capabilities into the travel platform but the software isn’t ready.

“The [software development kit] wasn’t quite robust enough for the things we want to do,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.

Chesky said the company would “probably” want to integrate ChatGPT eventually.

Airbnb on Tuesday launched a series of new social features, such as direct messaging, to its platform. The update also included a personalized version of the company’s chatbot launched earlier this year that can cancel and change reservations for users in North America.

In an interview with Bloomberg this week, Chesky said that the OpenAI chatbot isn’t “quite ready” for integration with Airbnb. He said the model was made using 13 different chatbots and that Airbnb is depending heavily on Alibaba’s Qwen model.

Chesky, who is a close friend of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said it’s only the beginning of the AI revolution and he expects the technology to fuel a consumer app craze over the next few years.

“We’re all going to have to work together,” he said. “AI is going to lift up a lot of companies. If they want to vertically integrate every single thing, that’s going to be very, very difficult.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Meta lays off 600 employees within AI unit

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Meta lays off 600 employees within AI unit

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Meta will lay off roughly 600 employees within its artificial intelligence unit as the company looks to reduce layers and operate more nimbly, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.

The company announced the cuts in a memo from its Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who was hired in June as part of Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit and other product-related positions will be impacted.

Axios was first to report the cuts.

Meta has been aggressively investing in AI as it works to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google, pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and recruitment.

On Tuesday, the company announced a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund and develop its massive Hyperion data center in rural Louisiana. The data center is expected to be large enough to cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post in July.

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Auto giant Volkswagen warns of output stoppages amid Nexperia chip disruption

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Auto giant Volkswagen warns of output stoppages amid Nexperia chip disruption

A new Volkswagen ID.3 electric car prepares to pass final inspection at the Volkswagen plant on May 14, 2025 in Dresden, Germany.

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

German auto giant Volkswagen on Wednesday warned of temporary production outages citing China’s export restrictions on semiconductors made by Nexperia.

The update comes shortly after the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), the country’s main car industry lobby, said the China-Netherlands dispute over Nexperia could lead to “significant production restrictions in the near future” if the supply interruption of chips cannot be swiftly resolved.

A spokesperson for Volkswagen told CNBC by email that while Nexperia is not a direct supplier of the company, some Nexperia parts are used in its vehicle components, which are supplied by Volkswagen’s direct suppliers.

“We are in close contact with all relevant stakeholders in light of the current situation to identify potential risks at an early stage and to be able to make decisions regarding any necessary measures,” a Volkswagen spokesperson said, noting that the firm’s production is currently unaffected.

“However, given the evolving circumstances, short-term effects on production cannot be ruled out,” they added.

Shares of Volkswagen traded 2.2% lower at 2 p.m. London time (9 a.m. ET).

Last month, the Dutch government took control of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned semiconductor maker based in the Netherlands, in what was seen as a highly unusual move.

The Dutch government seized control of the company, which specializes in the high-volume production of chips used in automotive, consumer electronics and other industries, citing fears the firm’s tech “would become unavailable in an emergency.”

China responded by blocking exports of the firm’s finished products, sparking alarm among Europe’s auto industry.

A spokesperson for Germany’s Economy Ministry said the government is concerned about chip supply chain difficulties, according to Reuters.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this report.

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