On Wednesday, November 19 at COSM 2025, philosopher of technology George Gilder offered an exciting prediction: “The wafer scale will have the same effect on the economy as the smartphone.”

Gilder presented the Keynote Luncheon address, The New Paradigm: Life After Chips. “Chips have shaped my life and all our lives,” he told the audience. Gilder, of course, was the man who handed a microchip to then-President Ronald Reagan, accurately predicting the next technological revolution. Now, he sees the rise of the wafer scale technology  — superchips, essentially — on the horizon. While Elon Musk’s dalliance with wafer scale technology was admittedly short-lived, Gilder pointed to the success of Cerebras.

After a short presentation by Gilder, Wall Street Journal bestselling author Andrew Mayne, a General Partner at Zero Shot Fund, joined Gilder onstage for a fireside chat. “I’ve been a fan of this man for so long,” Mayne said of Gilder. He went on to explain that it was from Gilder that he first learned of wafer scale technology. The two then entered into a back-and-forth exchange about why people and industries are still skeptical of wafer scale technology. They talked about what Gilder sees on the horizon over the next five to ten years, and how he would advise the younger generation to do as they look at higher education and embark on their own careers.

A disruptive technology that enhances us

Gilder called wafer scale “a disruptive technology,” which explains why so many are hesitant to take the leap from traditional chips, despite its many advantages over conventional chip technology. “You have this enormously successful system with a global supply chain, a maze of intricately adapted technologies all perfected and profitable and huge markets. And the idea of abandoning one model and moving to another, it always entails crossing the chasm.” But he said it’s a question of when, not if, the world crosses that chasm.

That’s when he made his prediction: “I think the wafer scale model will have the same kind of impact eventually on the entire world economy as the smartphone has. Everybody will have it and it will be transformative.”

Mayne then asked Gilder what he thinks about how the next five to ten years will unfold. “Superabundance” was Gilder’s reply, referring to concepts from Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy‘s book, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet (2022). “I really do believe that AI will make people more productive and thus more employable and who knows what we’re going to do with it,” said Gilder, offering a positive and hopeful vision of a future in which many others see danger and uncertainty.

Gilder continued about AI: “It doesn’t usurp human beings. It enhances us. It gives us new opportunities which are measured by the surprise of their results. Creativity is measured by surprise, surprising outcomes. And I believe that AI is going to produce all sorts of surprising outcomes.”

Mayne noted that many college students he speaks with today are more entrepreneurial-minded than students were in the past. They’re uncertain about the future and are turning that anxiety into productivity. Mayne asked Gilder how he would advise a 22-year-old right now. Here was Gilder’s inspiring response:

I think they should follow their passion, follow what really excites them about the world, learn all the tools that have become available to fulfill any of the goals they might imagine. I mean, you have to have your creative idea and then you have to master the tools to achieve the creative idea, the entrepreneurial venture. And that’s what they should do. It’s not a big change from the human predicaments since the age of agriculture or the age of hunting and gathering. Each era imposes new demands on each generation.