John Carmack suggests a return to software optimization could stave off a compute apocalypse

In context: Google researcher and reverse engineer "LaurieWired" recently posed a thought-provoking thread on X: What would happen after a CPU manufacturing apocalypse? How would the tech world respond to a future without newer, faster processors? Programming and optimization legend John Carmack offered an equally compelling answer.

LaurieWired proposes the idea of a "Zero Tape-out Day" (Z-Day), an event causing manufacturers to stop producing new silicon designs. Considering the existing supply, the researcher predicts skyrocketing computer prices, stalled cloud capacity, and a ticking clock on electromigration slowly degrading the most advanced chips built on smaller nodes – all within the first year after Z-Day.

Conditions would deteriorate even further in the following years, with a booming black market for processors and Xeon CPUs valued more than gold. Computing technology could regress by decades as older systems built on larger nodes prove far more resilient to electromigration.

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