Internet signals cross the ocean too slowly for modern AI
Crossing the Atlantic takes a light signal roughly 60 milliseconds, a delay that acts as a physical barrier for the split-second decisions required by modern artificial intelligence.
While we perceive the internet as instantaneous, the laws of physics impose a strict speed limit on the light traveling through fiber-optic cables. For a signal to travel from a server in Virginia to a user in Paris and back, it must cover thousands of miles, creating a round-trip delay of roughly 100 milliseconds. While a human barely notices a tenth of a second, this latency is catastrophic for real-time AI. In high-frequency trading or automated judicial systems, these microscopic pauses can slash algorithmic efficiency by 15 percent, making physical distance a greater obstacle than computing power.