Thesis 2.0 - Sovereign Computation

The world has changed, so has our thesis.

First published in Nov 23; updated in Nov 2024

Our thesis is a living framework of ideas allowing us to operate with focus and towards what matters most to us. It is built upon our perspectives on societal and technological inflection points that are shaping markets. Within it we evaluate startups as complex, adaptive systems on a case by case basis.

Over the past few decades knowledge technologies made huge leaps. The internet enabled the real time, cheap and global distribution of information. Search and social broadened its access and exploration. Transformers enabled its synthesis. Crypto enabled its ownership. Agents are enabling actions taken upon it. The convergence of such technologies won’t leave any aspect of human civilisation untouched. They started automating knowledge work and science but will reach far into the material world. Intelligent machines will be embodied in forms we cannot even think of yet - from space ships to nano bots. They will populate our labs, factory floors and streets. They will protect our infrastructure and replace humans on the battlefield. They will populate our oceans, the earth’s subsurface, outer space and other planets.

Computational sovereignty is as important as energy or military sovereignty. In fact, it is an input to both of them. The powers that be woke up to this reality and started a rat race for AGI. Analogous to the development of nuclear weapons, game theory dictates non-cooperative strategies when it comes to the development of weaponised AI. Organisations and individuals alike will similarly pursue access to sovereign compute technologies to evolve, thereby unlocking trillion dollar market opportunities.

With inflection we are pioneering the frontiers of sovereign computation: the physical-digital fabric that empowers nations, organisations and individuals to independently control their critical resources.

To achieve computational sovereignty, various constraints need to be overcome. Many of which are rooted in the physical world. To unfold their powers, our intelligent machines will need to operate interactively with their environments, humans as well as other machines. Yet, cells and matter operate at much slower speeds than machines can process and act upon information. Similarly, human brains, social systems and their institutions have high inertia and will struggle to keep pace with progress in the world of bits. Precisely for that reason it is the intersection of bits and atoms where opportunity lies:

Scale

As process scaling might come to an end it is a societal imperative that we find alternative paths to extend Moore’s Law. Current computational and networking frameworks are voracious and exponentially growing consumers of energy, accounting for over 20% of global electricity demand. The quest for new computing concepts calls for innovation in energy generation, conducting materials, lithography and manufacturing. Novel technical but also legal frameworks governing interactions between humans and machines need to be developed to drive progress. We are excited to back entrepreneurs contributing to those problem sets, e.g. hardware acceleration for cryptographic algorithms (Fabric), re-programmable, general purpose edge AI chips (Ubitium) or orbital edge AI running on satellites (Aptos).

Resilience

As compute scales and intelligence becomes more abundant, bits and atoms become more interconnected. We're more efficient but also more exposed to critical, large scale failures as the attack surface of our systems grows with their complexity. As much as nuclear weapons defined the 20th century world order, we believe that sovereign compute infrastructure will define that of the 21st century. AI safety, trust and alignment (for lack of a better term) as well as privacy and data-sovereignty of the individual are foundational to the liberal societies we must protect. Doing so requires us to rethink zero trust architectures from the ground up - don’t trust, verify. Therefore, we like to team up with founders pushing boundaries in encrypted computation (Flashbots), local-first post cloud architectures (Anytype), distributed systems and blockchain (Iron, Modulus, Entropy) all the way to space security (Lodestar) and robotic fleet control (Ark).

Flow

Without exponential growth in data generation and access, more intelligence won't help. Improving our thinking machines capabilities necessitates new approaches to sensing, data interoperability and interfaces. We believe that novel sensing tech beyond the electro-magnetic spectrum (think quantum, bio, chemical) will unlock entirely new behaviors, aka opportunities. Data markets powered by private compute tech (see above), synthetic data or market mechanisms (think prediction markets) can be catalysts for the free flow of data. Due to the rising capabilities of our thinking machines, mouse, keyboard and screen seem archaic. We are excited to see new designs emerge, be it in a machine-to machine (think agents) or human-machine (think XR, BCI) context. We enjoy working with teams unlocking insights by providing e.g. high resolution imagery and sensing from the stratosphere (Radical), comprehensive, interactive maps of the earth's subsurface (Stealth) or data markets run on encrypted data at rest (Tune Insight).

Inflection is committed to a future where sovereign compute platforms power human progress by backing outlier entrepreneurs with capital, networks and technology.

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