The laws of gravity and the way space is 'built' actually set a hard speed limit on how fast any computer can ever think.
April 2, 2026
Original Paper
Limits to Computational Acceleration Imposed by Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Gravity
arXiv · 2604.00182
The Takeaway
This research links general relativity to computer science, proving that if you try to accelerate a computer's 'thinking' speed using time dilation, quantum gravity effects will eventually break the machine. It defines a physical maximum clock speed for the universe based on energy scales.
From the abstract
A computer, in order to perform a given computation, requires a certain amount of space (memory) and a certain amount of time (runtime). This leaves certain computations beyond reach due to technological limits on processing speed and memory density. Some computations, such as the halting problem, are not possible even in principle. However, curved spacetimes and exotic fields appear to provide avenues to accelerate computation, for instance by exploiting time dilation. Impossible computations s