Connect with us

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Technology

Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

Published

on

By

Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

WATCH: Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Continue Reading

Technology

YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Published

on

By

YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok. 

The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.

Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.

The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google

Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement. 

Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.

“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”

WATCH: TikTok is a digital Trojan horse, says Hayman Capital’s Kyle Bass

TikTok is a digital Trojan horse, says Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass

Continue Reading

Technology

Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

Published

on

By

Tech stocks sink after Trump tariff rollout — Apple heads for worst drop in 5 years

CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Via Reuters

Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.

Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.

Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.

Semiconductor stocks also felt the pain, with Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and Micron Technology falling more than 8% each. Broadcom and Lam Research dropped 6%, while Advanced Micro Devices declined more than 4% Software stocks ServiceNow and Fortinet fell more than 5% each.

Read more CNBC tech news

The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.

Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.

China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”

The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.

Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.

Evercore ISI's Amit Daryanani on keeping Apple's outperform rating despite tariffs

Continue Reading

Trending