This article is part of a series exploring the key themes from the Metaverse Roadmap 2007—a foresight exercise conducted nearly two decades ago by a group of developers, technologists, and futurists from the games industry.
If the Metaverse Roadmap accurately predicted the shift toward digital ownership, AI-driven intelligence, and user-generated economies, it was perhaps most prescient in recognizing that ubiquitous compute would be the foundation that made all of it possible.
We understood that virtual worlds, intelligent systems, and decentralized economies could only emerge at scale if the underlying processing power, storage, and network infrastructure could keep up.
The Roadblock: Access to Sustainable Compute Power
One major roadblock is clear—access to sustainable compute power at an immense scale.
AI, large-scale simulations, and decentralized economies all demand exponentially increasing amounts of processing power.
Our existing models for infrastructure development are already being stretched to their limits.
If we are to realize a future where AI, digital ownership, and decentralized economies function as intended, we must address the fundamental questions of:
Who provides the computational backbone?
How is it distributed?
Can it be sustained without catastrophic environmental consequences?
DePIN: Beyond Compute, Toward a New Coordination Layer
Much of the current conversation around DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) focuses on compute power, distributed GPU networks, and decentralized data storage. And while that’s an important piece, the broader story is about how infrastructure itself is being redefined—not just for processing power, but for governance, coordination, and remote collaboration at scale.
We are seeing this play out across multiple domains:
The rise of DAOs and decentralized governance → Networks that function without centralized corporate control, coordinating funding, decision-making, and resource allocation.
The transformation of remote work → No longer just a convenience, but an evolution toward decentralized digital workforces, global talent liquidity, and autonomous collaboration networks.
The shift away from legacy infrastructure → New models for energy, data processing, and cloud storage that challenge traditional corporate and government-run systems.
This isn’t just about decentralization for the sake of ideology—it’s about structural efficiency and resilience. Centralized infrastructure is a single point of failure, and the demand for globally distributed, interoperable systems has never been higher.
Sustainability & The Future of Infrastructure
As we push toward this new reality, we have to think beyond immediate technological problems and into the sustainability challenges that come with them.
The need for:
Green data centers,
High-efficiency battery technology, and
Alternative energy solutions
...is no longer just about environmental responsibility—it’s a prerequisite for the future we’re building.
A lack of access to cost-effective, sustainable compute power at immense scale is a fundamental bottleneck. And this isn’t just an AI problem—it affects blockchain, Web3, and every industry relying on high-performance computing.
If the next phase of global infrastructure is built on increasingly power-hungry AI models, blockchain networks, and high-performance computing, we cannot afford to let sustainability be an afterthought.
The conversation around renewable-powered data centers, distributed energy grids, and localized compute clusters needs to be as much a part of the conversation as AI innovation itself.
The Price of Tomorrow: Why This Future Must Be Deflationary
A core part of this vision is something that Jeff Booth outlines in The Price of Tomorrow—the idea that technology is inherently deflationary.
As automation, AI, and decentralized systems take over more aspects of labor and economic coordination, the cost of production will continue to drop, and traditional economic models will be forced to adapt.
The challenge? Our current economic structures are built on inflationary principles—endless growth, debt cycles, and centralized control over money supply.
But as technology drives costs toward zero, this old model becomes increasingly unsustainable.
DePIN, DAOs, and decentralized compute are not just about efficiency—they are about ensuring that value creation is distributed in a way that aligns with a future where abundance, rather than artificial scarcity, defines economic opportunity.
This is precisely why Bitcoin’s deflationary principles are becoming increasingly important—they align with a future where technology systematically reduces costs rather than inflating them.
A New Paradigm for Digital Infrastructure
The Metaverse Roadmap saw this coming—even if the exact implementation wasn’t clear at the time.
Ubiquitous compute
Decentralized coordination
New governance models
…were always going to be the foundations of the digital future.
The real question is not whether infrastructure will evolve—but who will own and control it.