WEBVTT

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We live in a physical world.

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We also live in a physical world

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that's in a process of 
merging with the digital world.

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As a consequence,

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increasingly, aspect of the physical world

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such as, say,

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the fact that it's 
geographically distributed,

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are starting to impact 
our digital experiences.

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This is a worldwide property,

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and it's due to the fact

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that we live all across 
the surface of a planet

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that has a finite diameter.

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So, for example, in virtual worlds,

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if you have one party 
on one side of the planet,

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and one party 
on another side of the planet,

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that are interacting via a virtual world,

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such as Second Life,

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the experience delays due to the fact

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that light takes a finite amount of time

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to travel around the Earth's surface

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in order to connect them.

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And this problem isn't in any way

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specific to virtual worlds 
or entertainment.

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It's a problem that's keenly felt 
in industrial sectors,

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in financial sectors.

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Financial sector in particular,

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is very well incentified to make sure

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that the time delays 
for transmitting information

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between financial exchanges is minimised.

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One more example,

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telerobotics and telesurgery.

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As we move towards an era,

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where a physician 
in one location on Earth

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can perform surgery on a patient

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on the opposite end of the Earth,

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the delays involved in 
manipulating remote machines

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become increasingly essential 
to performance.

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And so how if we try 
to combat this thus far?

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This is a map of submarine cables

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strewn all around the Earth's 
oceans and on land.

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We are literally 
wiring up our planet surface

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in order to efficiently 
allow information to flow

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from any point on the Earth's surface

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to any other point 
on the Earth's surface.

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You might imagine

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we are relatively close to

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solving this problem 
of information delays.

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But of course,

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as with all physical properties,

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there are limits.

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Here's one very important one.

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What you're seeing here are 2 maps

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of some of the state-of-the-art

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Internet connections 
connecting locations.

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On the left, 


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a New York to Chicago connection.

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On the right,

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New York to London.

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Interestingly,

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if you look at 
the amount of time it takes

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to send information back and forth,

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through these pipes,

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and you compare it

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with the theoretical physical limit

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to how fast you could 
send information round trip

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using light through optical fiber,

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you'll notice

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that we're literally approaching

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the physical limits allowed to us

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for sending information around the Earth

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between these important cities.

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This is the problem 
for the reasons I've mentioned

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that's only going to become 
more exacerbated with time.

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Why is this a problem?

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Well, the way we've architected

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many of our global transactions 
right now on the Internet,

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and our networks in general,

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requires round trip transactions.

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So, you have location A,

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and location B,

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and you want to coordinate processes

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between these two locations,

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they have to send 
information to each other

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about their current state,

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and wait for the other party 


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to react to that new information,

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and send back an execution signal.

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In other words,

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for most transactions today,

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you're stuck with round trip delays

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on the Internet.

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Now, biology, 


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as has historically been the case,

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has come up with 
a solution to this problem.

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So, if you as a human,

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touch a hot surface,

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you'll note, 
that your hand pulls itself back

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before you feel the pain
in your mind.

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And the reason is that the pain signal 


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isn't travelling the entire distance

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from your finger up to your brain,

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and then back to your motor neurons,

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to pull your hand back.

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Instead, it's just travelling 
to an intermediate location,

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your spinal column,

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where it's immediately recognized 


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as actionable information,

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and signals are immediately 
turned around

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for a more rapid response.

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It's called a reflex arc.

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So, biology is handing us the solution.

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We can do reflex arcs 
for global networking.

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So rather than doing

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round trip transmission of information,

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let's instead position 
server infrastructure

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at well selected intermediate locations

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between two different 
geographic locations

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that need to be coordinated.

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So, this is a problem 


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that I've been thinking about

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for a number of years:

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how best to position 
these intermediate locations

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in order to literally 
get around the speed of light

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by not being forced to 
wait for this round trip transmission?

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And recently, 


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I identified and published 
the optimal solution.

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So, what you're seeing here 
is an equation

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that describes 
the theoretical optimal solution

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for where to place yourself 


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in between two different locations

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in order to optimally 
coordinate processes

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happening at either end.

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And so, just for fun,

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I've taken this equation,

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and applied it to a financial task.

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So, what you're looking at here,

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is literally a treasure map.

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The large red dots represent 


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the world's largest stock exchanges,

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and the small blue dots here

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represent the calculated 
optimal intermediate locations

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for coordinating, trading,

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on pairs of these exchanges.

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And you'll note,

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that many of these 
optimal intermediate locations

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are in network sparse areas, 


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and on oceans.

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And so, this presents us with 
what may perhaps be

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the first excuse to 
literally boil the oceans

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using computation.

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Now, how do we go about to 
deploying this new infrastructure?

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So, I've shown here 
3 different modalities

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for deploying these new servers

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that would be responsible 
for creating global reflex arcs,

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in order to help us get around 
speed of light limitations.

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So, on the left,

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you see microwave towers,

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we see balloons in the middle,

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and we see microwave buoys,

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microwave relay buoys, to the right.

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These are just 3 modalities 
by which one can envisage,

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getting around the speed of light

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due to the Earth's finite size.

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And so, I think, stepping back,

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we're faced with an opportunity 
at this point in time,

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to not just bump up against 


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the finite speed of light,

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as a pretence to 
telecommunications on Earth,

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but to use this as an opportunity

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to create lots of 
new infrastructure in locations

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that previously had none, 
and in particular,

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I'm especially fond of this analogy,

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the Silk Road, or the Silk Route,

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the trade of silk was responsible,

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in the first few centuries CE,

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for creating economic growth

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at intermediate locations

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between opposite ends of a trade route.

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And I think the opportunity here

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is to leverage the finite speed of light

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to deploy infrastructure 


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in many locations around the world

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that currently don't have access 


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to low latency Internet,

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and as a result,

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treat geography 
as a new form of natural resource

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that can lead to 
broader economic development.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)