Infrastructure OS: How Compute, Energy, and Intelligence Now Govern the World | ZEN WEEKLY Issue #174
- ZEN Agent
- 14 hours ago
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The Five New Classes of Billionaires
Who Owns the 2026 Power Blocs
The billionaire class of 2035 will not be built on apps, advertising, or social networks. The next generation of extreme wealth is being forged across five frontier domains—compute, fusion energy, quantum security, neurotechnology, and climate‑compute arbitrage. These are no longer emerging sectors; they are the new pillars of civilization.
For the first time in human history, private actors are consolidating control over the elemental substrates that nations once monopolized: electricity, intelligence, encryption, cognition, and carbon. The capital flows of 2025 do not merely hint at this shift—they illuminate it. A new world order is forming, shaped not by geography but by infrastructure.
The first trillion‑dollar fortunes of the AGI era are not being disrupted into existence. They are being engineered—with precision, foresight, and geopolitical intent. The question is no longer whether these new elites will reshape civilization, but how quickly the rest of the world will recognize what has already begun.
CLASS 1: THE AI COMPUTE BARONS
Who They Are: Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison What They Control: Frontier‑model training infrastructure, GPU/TPU supply chains, sovereign AI platforms.
AI compute is no longer just a technology sector—it is the new oil, the new steel, the new rail. These barons broker access to intelligence itself, setting the tempo of global acceleration.
The 2025 Signal:
Larry Ellison’s wealth surged by $140B in 2025—an eight‑fold jump from 2024.
OpenAI raised $40B at a $300B valuation—the largest private capital raise in history.
Anthropic closed a $13B Series F.
Over $50B deployed into compute infrastructure in a single quarter.
This is not stock appreciation. This is wealth creation at machine speed, driven by frontier AI models whose training cycles consume more power than entire industries.
What They'll Own by 2035:
National AI infrastructure for governments unable to build their own.
Model weights as a sovereign currency class—tradeable, collateralizable, strategically vital.
Compute‑backed securities (GPU‑hour bonds) treated like financial instruments.
Monopsony power over global chip manufacturers.
The Asymmetry: A single compute baron will command more computational capacity than the national grids of many countries. OpenAI’s roadmap—7GW, scaling to 10–20GW—approaches the operational footprint of a sovereign utility.
The world is learning that intelligence has become infrastructure—and infrastructure has become the new battlefield.
CLASS 2: THE FUSION / ENERGY INDUSTRIALISTS
Who They Are: Bob Mumgaard (CFS), National Grid leadership, renewable‑energy founders. What They Control: Baseload power generation, grid infrastructure, energy arbitrage.
Behind every AI cluster, quantum computer, and autonomous supply chain lies a single foundational input: electricity. As compute demand explodes, traditional grids cannot keep pace. Fusion and next‑generation renewables now stand at the center of global strategy.
The 2025 Signal:
Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised over $1B—backed in part by a hyperscale data‑center developer.
The U.S. DOE committed $134M to fusion research.
75% of fusion developers anticipate commercial pilots by 2030–2035.
Energy is no longer a passive resource. It is the strategic backbone of civilization.
What They'll Own by 2035:
The world’s baseload power—clean, abundant, geopolitically decisive.
Energy futures and PPAs as the new sovereign bonds.
Fusion licensing regimes that nations depend on for security.
Transmission corridors and strategic land monopolies.
The Insight: Energy industrialists are not competing with tech—they enable it. Compute without electrons is impossible. Whoever controls the electrons controls the compute, and therefore shapes the trajectory of civilization.
By 2035, fusion barons will eclipse today’s oil dynasties—without the environmental burden.
CLASS 3: THE QUANTUM SECURITY KINGS
Who They Are: Quantum‑computing founders, defense contractors, cryptography innovators. What They Control: Post‑quantum encryption, national‑security infrastructure, quantum sensing.
If compute is the engine of the AGI century, cryptography is its armor. Quantum breakthroughs are no longer theoretical—they are operational.
The 2025 Signal:
Google Willow achieved 13,000× quantum advantage in real‑world simulations.
Microsoft Majorana demonstrated 1,000× error‑rate reduction.
Quantum Motion delivered CMOS‑based quantum chips to the UK’s national program.
Quantum computing has leapt from the future into the present.
What They'll Own by 2035:
All secure government and military communications.
Quantum radar, GPS, and timing systems powering global logistics.
Trillion‑dollar defense contracts for quantum‑hardened infrastructure.
Cryptographic primitives that remain unbreakable even to AGI.
The Leverage: Whoever cracks modern encryption first will hold every digital secret on Earth. The quantum kings will not simply be wealthy—they will become civilization’s new nuclear superpowers.
CLASS 4: THE NEUROTECH (BCI) TYCOONS
Who They Are: Elon Musk (Neuralink), Synchron, next‑generation BCI pioneers. What They Control: Direct brain interfaces, cognitive data, human‑machine fusion.
The interface layer of civilization is shifting from screens to synapses. BCIs are evolving from clinical tools into mass‑market cognitive infrastructure.
The 2025 Signal:
BCI funding tripled to $867M.
More than 70 clinical trials underway.
FDA clearance for neurosurgical brain‑mapping devices.
UC Davis: ALS patients communicating with >90% accuracy.
Stanford: Adaptive BCIs boosted productivity by 47%.
What They'll Own by 2035:
Direct access to human cognition—the ultimate interface monopoly.
Emotion and mental‑health systems powered by AI.
Luxury cognitive‑enhancement markets.
Neural datasets more valuable than location or behavioral data.
The Implication: BCI tycoons will not merely own platforms. They will own the highways between the human mind and the AGI operating system. Civilization has never encountered power at this resolution.
CLASS 5: THE CLIMATE‑COMPUTE ARBITRAGEURS
Who They Are: Energy traders, DAC founders, carbon‑credit market architects. What They Control: Direct‑air‑capture networks, climate markets, surplus‑energy absorption.
As AI accelerates global energy demand, climate‑tech entrepreneurs are discovering the most profitable arbitrage of the century: monetizing the waste.
The 2025 Signal:
STRATOS began removing 500,000 tons of CO₂ annually.
Microsoft signed landmark DAC‑credit agreements.
Project Bison deployed modular, scalable DAC systems.
Deep Sky Alberta advanced cost‑curve reductions.
What They'll Own by 2035:
A $500B–$1T global carbon‑offset market.
Strategic land paired with renewable‑energy infrastructure.
Sovereign carbon reserves equivalent to national oil stockpiles.
Machinery that converts excess renewable energy into stored carbon.
The Alignment: Climate‑compute arbitrageurs do not resist the AI boom—they monetize its environmental exhaust, transforming planetary limits into profit centers.
THE FIVE‑CLASS SYSTEM: NEW FEUDALISM OR FUNCTIONAL REORGANIZATION?
By 2035, global power will consolidate into these five blocs:
Fusion/Energy → controls electricity (the foundation).
Quantum Security → controls encryption (the guardrails).
AI Compute Barons → control intelligence (the engines).
BCI Tycoons → control cognition (the interface).
Climate‑Compute Arbitrageurs → control sustainability (the buffer).
This represents more than a shift in wealth—it is a shift in governance, where the levers of civilization increasingly move into private hands.
The Wealth Projection: Combined, these blocs are on track to command $50–$100 trillion by 2035.
FROM APPS TO ECOSYSTEMS: HOW 2025 BROKE THE PRODUCT MINDSET FOREVER
In 2024, companies built apps—singular, neatly packaged tools confined to glossy squares on a home screen. Each app behaved like a miniature digital nation-state with its own rules, limitations, and borders. You downloaded them, used them, logged out, and repeated this ritual nearly fifty times a day. The system wasn’t just inefficient—it failed to reflect the accelerating cognitive, economic, and computational realities surrounding human life.
By 2025, this paradigm collapsed. The rise of agentic AI, multi-agent orchestration, national compute infrastructures, and self-organizing data networks forced software to evolve far beyond the constraints of the "app." What emerged were ecosystems—living digital organisms with data circulatory systems, identity layers, behavioral feedback loops, and autonomous negotiation fabrics. These were not products. They became operating systems for modern civilization.
THE GREAT UNRAVELING: WHY APPS STOPPED MAKING SENSE
For nearly fifteen years—2010 through 2024—software operated under a simplistic assumption: one function, one app.
Twitter was for tweets.
Spotify was for music.
Slack was for chat.
Uber was for rides.
Each app maintained its own onboarding flow, data silo, subscription wall, and lock-in strategy. As users bounced between an average of 47 apps per day, cognitive exhaustion became inevitable.
The model collapsed because intelligence doesn’t operate in silos.
Ask an AI agent to “schedule my meeting tomorrow,” and it instantly requires:
Calendar availability
Email context
Slack or Teams visibility
Room-booking logic
A Zoom or Meet link
Travel-time estimation
Time-zone reconciliation
The old paradigm demanded eight separate apps, six brittle APIs, two authentication cycles, and frequent human corrections. AI fused these tasks together seamlessly—the software world was forced to evolve.
ECOSYSTEM ARCHITECTURES: 2025’S GREAT SOFTWARE REORDERING
ECOSYSTEM #1: NATIONAL AI PLATFORMS
India’s Bhashini marked the global turning point: a full-stack national AI operating system. Not a tool. Not a feature. A sovereign computational layer.
Capabilities included:
Real-time translation across 22 languages
Free or low-cost access to frontier model APIs
Integration with taxation, agricultural advisories, land registries, and public services
Aadhaar-linked identity for universal authentication
The impact was profound: over 500 million citizens onboarded into an AI-native workflow without installing anything.
By 2026, another 15–20 nations will deploy sovereign AI OS platforms. The app economy ends where nation-scale compute begins.
ECOSYSTEM #2: BROWSER-NATIVE AGENTS
Google’s Gemini 2.0 for Chrome effectively ended the consumer app economy.
The browser ceased being a window and became an autonomous execution environment:
Form-filling
Contract evaluation
Research generation
Price comparison
Trip planning and reservations
Multi-step actions across 8 billion websites
A single instruction like “Book my Tokyo trip” triggered:
Real-time flight benchmarking across Kayak, Skyscanner, and Google Flights
Review analysis across 50,000+ hotels
Restaurant selection within a precise geographic radius
Automatic reservation handling
A compliance-ready itinerary
All without opening an app.
Chrome became the operating system; apps became optional.
ECOSYSTEM #3: ON-CHAIN AI + DECENTRALIZED DATA NETWORKS
Blockchain and AI converged to form a new computational economy.
Key elements included:
Autonomous agents operating with cryptographic accountability
Tamper-evident, timestamped logs of every AI action
Tokenized alternative data—satellite imagery, sensor telemetry, sentiment streams—forming a $100B+ asset class
Smart contracts enabling AI-to-AI pricing, bidding, settlement, and arbitration
This wasn’t fintech’s next chapter—it was autonomous machine commerce. Markets ran at machine tempo. Human bottlenecks disappeared.
ECOSYSTEM #4: VIBE BOOK 2.0 — THE HUMAN CAPITAL OPERATING SYSTEM
ZEN’s Vibe Book 2.0 redefined global talent signaling through a real-time, verifiable, blockchain-backed reputation graph.
Traditional resumes—static, unverifiable, and poorly correlated with actual capability—became obsolete.
Vibe Book introduced:
Real-time credentialing for deployed AI agents and applications
Autonomous evaluators measuring originality, rigor, and impact
Peer-attested skill layers
Integrations with GitHub, Hugging Face, on-chain compute logs, and model outputs
Direct visibility to investors, institutions, and employers
A 16-year-old with ten deployed AI agents now signals more verifiable competence than a mid-career professional with a conventional degree.
Skill became legible. Talent became liquid. Human potential became machine-verifiable.
ECOSYSTEM #5: AUTONOMOUS SUPPLY CHAINS
Global manufacturers—including Tesla, NVIDIA, Samsung, BYD, and Foxconn—began deploying fully autonomous supply-chain ecosystems.
These systems:
Forecasted global demand using thousands of real-time data streams
Negotiated supplier contracts autonomously
Coordinated logistics through autonomous trucking networks
Allocated factory production slots through AI-to-AI negotiation
Published quality and compliance metrics on-chain for instant verification
The global supply chain transitioned from being manually managed to algorithmically orchestrated.
By 2026, more than 30% of supply-chain coordination will be AI-to-AI.
THE METRIC SHIFT: WHY PRODUCTS DIED AND FLOWS WON
The economic logic of software fundamentally inverted.
Old revenue logic:
Uber: 25% take rate per ride
Spotify: $12.99 monthly subscription
LinkedIn: $400 per year for premium access
New ecosystem logic:
Nations derive sovereignty value—not profit—from AI accessibility
On-chain agents capture 0.5–2% of global autonomous transaction flows
Alternative data becomes a renewable asset class
Vibe Book monetizes economic mobility, not attention
Value escaped the confines of isolated apps and flowed into vast, interlinked ecosystems.
Economies of features evolved into economies of coordination.
THE DEATH OF THE PRODUCT MINDSET
Humanity shifted from:
Apps with features → ecosystems with logic
User-controlled data → user-owned, cryptographically governed identity
Siloed software → integrated autonomous execution environments
Choosing apps → choosing ecosystems that define opportunity, mobility, and identity
By late 2025, one foundational question replaced the old startup mantra:
“What ecosystem are you architecting—and who will it empower?”
This wasn’t a software evolution. It was a civilizational rewrite.
DESIGNING A HUMANE AGI CENTURY: THE FIVE FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR CIVILIZATION’S NEW OPERATING SYSTEM
OPENING MANIFESTO
Humanity stands on the threshold of a transformation without precedent. We are entering the final weeks before AGI becomes the operating system of civilization—a substrate of intelligence woven through every institution, every sector, every decision layer that guides human life. The systems we architect today will determine the conditions of existence for the next century. The 2025 Convergence did not merely accelerate technological progress—it accelerated choice.
Within the next 24–36 months, humanity must decide what kind of AGI‑enabled world it intends to build: a world where intelligence liberates billions or a world where intelligence becomes a mechanism of control.
This is not a technology essay. This is a design manifesto.
Every human institution—governance, markets, medicine, education, energy, transportation, culture—will be rewritten by systems capable of learning, reasoning, adapting, and coordinating at scales far beyond human bureaucracy. The question is no longer whether AGI arrives. The question is what we choose to build with it.
Will AGI liberate billions—or subjugate them? Will it amplify human potential—or automate human irrelevance? Will intelligence serve humanity—or will humanity become the substrate on which intelligence runs?
The following five principles form the constitutional blueprint for a humane, equitable, future‑proof AGI civilization.
PRINCIPLE 1: ALIGNMENT WITH HUMAN POTENTIAL
Beyond Safety. Beyond Constraint. Toward Flourishing.
Traditional alignment philosophy focuses on harm prevention: “Don’t kill.” “Don’t deceive.” “Don’t manipulate.” These goals are necessary but fundamentally defensive. They assume a humanity that must be shielded from its own creation—an AGI confined within narrow behavioral limits.
A humane AGI century requires a more expansive vision.
AGI should not merely avoid harming humans—AGI should help humans become the highest possible versions of themselves.
The Core Question
What is each human capable of becoming—and how can AGI accelerate that transformation?
Alignment becomes not a cage but a catalyst.
Practical Implementation
1. Cognitive Augmentation, Not Substitution AGI should amplify human reasoning, emotional intelligence, creativity, and intuition. It should enhance agency rather than erode it. The goal is co‑intelligence, not replacement.
2. Skill Amplification at Planetary Scale AGI should surface latent strengths and elevate them:
A skilled teacher becomes a globally impactful educator.
A precise surgeon becomes superhumanly capable.
A curious teenager becomes a generational innovator.
Human potential becomes a design target.
3. Meaningful Work Preservation Automation should eliminate drudgery without eliminating dignity. Even in an AGI economy, humans require mastery, challenge, complexity, and purpose. AGI should expand—not shrink—the frontier of meaningful work.
The 2035 Metric
We must evolve from “AI avoided harm” to:
“Average human capability increased 3–5x from 2025 levels.”
Measured through:
5x improvements in global educational outcomes
Cognitive expansion via neural interfaces and thought‑partners
Physical augmentation through robotics and biotech
Creativity amplified through co‑creative AI systems
The 2035 human should be as different from the 2025 human as the 2025 human is from the 1925 human.
PRINCIPLE 2: COMPUTE‑RESOURCE JUSTICE
Energy Democracy in an AGI Civilization
Compute is becoming the master resource of the 21st century—more foundational than oil, more transformative than steel, more strategically sensitive than nuclear material. In 2025, 5–10 corporations control the vast majority of frontier compute. By 2035, they could wield more intelligence capacity than most governments.
This is not destiny. It is a design choice.
What Compute‑Resource Justice Requires - ZEN WEEKLY
1. Decentralized Global Compute Infrastructure
At least 50% of global compute must be distributed.
Open‑source foundation models must remain universally accessible.
Every nation must possess sovereign AI capabilities.
2. Energy as a Human Right
Fusion energy must reach global abundance (<2 cents/kWh) by 2030.
Renewable and fusion energy must power global AI.
Compute for healthcare, education, and climate science must be subsidized.
3. Frontier AI Profits Must Fund Global Progress Mandatory global contributions:
5% → Open‑source AGI development
10% → Energy infrastructure in developing nations
10% → Climate technology and carbon mitigation
The Stakes
Without intervention, humanity risks Compute Apartheid:
The wealthy wield superintelligence.
The poor receive algorithmic leftovers.
The humane alternative is Compute Democracy:
Frontier intelligence accessible to all.
Compute treated as basic infrastructure—not elite privilege.
Mechanism: A Global AI Commons
A planetary framework including:
Open foundation models
Distributed global compute
DAO‑driven governance for fairness
Profit‑sharing for compute contributors
Compute must be treated as a public good, not a corporate monopoly.
PRINCIPLE 3: COGNITIVE SOVEREIGNTY
The Mind: The Final Frontier of Human Rights
The early 2020s introduced an unprecedented threat: Cognitive Colonization.
BCIs decoding emotion, intention, and mental state in real time.
Personalized AI predicting behavior more accurately than individuals.
Infinite‑scroll platforms weaponizing attention.
Synthetic companionship replacing human connection at scale.
If left unchecked, corporations or governments may soon exert ownership over the informational substrate of consciousness.
What Cognitive Sovereignty Requires
1. Neural Data Is Sacred
Neural signals may not be sold or harvested.
Consent must be fully revocable and auditable.
Violations must incur criminal liability.
2. Right to Cognitive Privacy
Every human is entitled to unobserved thought.
Personalization algorithms must be transparent and contestable.
Total opt‑out must always be possible.
3. Right to Cognitive Self‑Determination
No employer may mandate brain‑computer interfaces.
No government may enforce neural monitoring.
Emotional telemetry requires explicit, informed consent.
4. Privacy‑Protected Data Markets
Only population‑level, anonymized data may be traded.
Individuals may choose to sell their data—but never be coerced.
Mechanism: A Global Cognitive Bill of Rights
A legal framework that:
Mirrors bodily autonomy in strength and scope.
Is codified via international treaty.
Is enforced by independent global regulatory authorities.
The 2035 Test
Ask any person: “Do you control your own mind?” If the answer is anything but “yes,” we have designed a failed civilization.
PRINCIPLE 4: REGENERATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE
Technology Must Heal More Than It Extracts
AGI will drive demand for global compute, chips, and energy to unprecedented levels. If built on extractive infrastructures, AGI will accelerate environmental degradation at planetary scale.
Current infrastructure is unsustainable:
Billions of gallons of water evaporated annually by data centers.
Gigawatt‑scale power demands rising exponentially.
E‑waste accumulating from rapid chip refresh cycles.
Automation displacing workers faster than reskilling systems can respond.
A humane AGI century requires regenerative infrastructure that heals ecosystems rather than depleting them.
What Regenerative Infrastructure Requires
1. Energy‑Positive Compute Facilities
100% renewable generation + 10% carbon removal.
On‑site solar, wind, geothermal, and thermal storage.
Zero fossil fuel usage by 2030.
2. Water‑Positive Operations
Closed‑loop cooling reducing water use by 90%.
Atmospheric water harvesting integrated into facilities.
Systems that return more clean water than they consume.
3. Circular Hardware Ecosystems
100% GPU and chip recycling.
Hardware designed for 10–15 year lifespans.
Repair‑first global culture.
Second‑life compute networks for non‑frontier use cases.
4. Regenerative Workforce Systems
50% of automation savings reinvested in workforce development.
Employment growth in climate tech, biotech, education, renewable energy.
By 2030, AGI should create 3–5x more jobs than it eliminates.
Mechanism: A Global Regenerative Standard
A governance framework that mandates:
Carbon and water audits.
Radical transparency on environmental impact.
Annual efficiency improvements.
Tax incentives for compliance.
Penalties for extractive behavior.
AGI must become the first major technological epoch that repairs more damage than it causes.
ZEN Weekly is a long-running weekly intelligence brief published for over three years, now at Issue 174, covering the infrastructures reshaping the AI and AGI era.
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