1st Quarter , 21st Century: We Changed the World!

Wishing everyone a very happy 2026 and the second quarter of this century!

The year 2025 marks not just the end of another year, but the completion of the first quarter of the 21st century. This quarter-century has been one of unprecedented transformation—geopolitically, technologically, economically, and socially.

All of us who have worked professionally in rapidly evolving domains can legitimately say that we have changed the world. These domains include telephony, the internet, information technology, energy, engineering, space, medicine, and education, among others.

Technological Developments

Renewable Energy in India

On the technological front—beyond the natural pace of innovation—this quarter-century has witnessed a remarkable expansion of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar.

At the beginning of the century (around 2001), India’s total installed wind power capacity was approximately 1 GW. Today, it stands at about 54 GW—a nearly 50-fold increase in 25 years, or roughly 2 GW per year. Similarly, almost the entire 133 GW of solar power capacity existing today has been installed during this period.

In effect, 254 GW of renewable energy capacity has been added to India’s power generation system in just 25 years.

Until around 2012, renewable energy—especially wind—was still considered a struggling technology. I vividly recall a conference where someone remarked that I spoke too much about wind energy, asserting that “wind cannot be a solution.” At that time, the mainstream energy sector was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the rise of renewables.

Today, with scale, market depth, and robust policy and institutional frameworks in place, renewable energy has become a juggernaut—a force that will not stop.

Electric Mobility and Renewable Integration

Another major transformation has occurred in the transportation sector, with increasing electrification.

According to PIB, as of November 2025, about 812 MW of solar power and 93 MW of wind power have been commissioned specifically to meet the traction requirements of Indian Railways. Additionally, 100 MW of renewable power under Round-the-Clock (RTC) mode, tied up through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), is now supplying traction energy.

Beyond railways, India has nearly 6 million electric vehicles on its roads, drawing power largely from the grid—where renewable energy increasingly plays a significant role.

The potential for renewable energy remains immense. In 2011, I assessed and published a wind energy potential of about 2,000 GW, based on then-prevailing technologies (2 MW turbines with 80 m hub heights). Today, turbines exceeding 5 MW with 140 m hub heights are being deployed, dramatically improving plant load factors and land-use efficiency.

For solar energy, earlier assessments placed the potential at around 11,000 GW. With newer technologies, this figure could easily reach 15,000 GW. It is therefore very likely that the next quarter-century (2025–2050) will witness massive renewable energy installations.

That said, some areas remain underexploited—most notably offshore wind energy and small wind turbines.

Renewable Energy Worldwide

Globally, in 2000, total installed wind power capacity stood at 17.4 GW, while solar power was a modest 1.22 GW.

By 2025, global wind power capacity has reached approximately 1,320 GW, and solar power has crossed 2,000 GW, taking combined wind and solar installations to over 3,320 GW. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), total global renewable capacity—including hydro—is expected to reach 5,800 GW.

In simple terms, almost the entire global wind and solar capacity has been installed in just 25 years.

Notably, India and China have led these installations, signalling a clear eastward shift in renewable energy markets. Technological progress has been especially striking in wind energy, where turbine capacities have increased more than fivefold, and hub heights have nearly doubled.

Mobile Phones and the Internet Revolution

Another defining change of this era has been the near-universal penetration of mobile phones.

Today, there are more mobile subscriptions than people worldwide. More than half of these devices are smartphones, providing access to the internet, apps, and digital services that have transformed daily life.

Banking, sourcing, supply chains, shopping, and communication have all been revolutionized. International meetings now happen instantly through platforms like Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meet.

During the COVID period, we successfully organized the WWEC 2021 international conference virtually, in partnership with TERI, with participation from eminent global experts and even Ministers. What once seemed extraordinary has now become routine—yet it remains one of the most dramatic changes in how we work.

COVID-19: A Global Disruption

Beginning in 2020, the world faced the unprecedented shock of COVID-19 and global shutdowns. The result was the rapid normalization of work from home, virtual collaboration, and home-delivery systems. Many organizations across the world continue to embrace these models today.

Space Technology

India gained global recognition through the Chandrayaan missions and the Mars Orbiter Mission. ISRO has also emerged as a reliable partner for launching satellites for other nations.

Globally, space exploration expanded dramatically—missions reached asteroid Bennu, private companies like SpaceXintroduced disruptive technologies, and countries such as India, China, Japan, Europe, and the UAE joined the space race.

India’s successful Moon landing surprised many, challenging the long-held assumption that only the US, China, or Russia could achieve such feats. Chandrayaan did more than touch the Moon—it boosted global respect for Indian technology.

In the previous quarter-century (1975–2000), we watched the Moon from a distance. In this quarter, we touched it.

I recall a conversation in 2005 in Bonn, during the European Parliamentary Forum organized by Dr. Hermann Scheer, with Dr. Aloys Wobben of Enercon Gmbh, who remarked that Indians would soon think of going to the Moon. My response was simple: “Why not?”

Social, Environmental, and Geopolitical Realities

Despite remarkable technological progress and growing awareness, the period 2000–2025 has also exposed the limits of global coordination in addressing shared challenges. While renewable energy, digitalization, and efficiency improvements have advanced rapidly, global greenhouse gas emissions—particularly CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O—have continued to rise or remain stubbornly high.

Electricity generation and transportation remain among the most significant contributors to emissions. The expansion of renewable energy, electrification of transport, energy efficiency measures, and innovations such as aerofoil-based sails in shipping offer clear pathways for mitigation. However, the pace of deployment has often been outmatched by rising energy demand driven by population growth, urbanization, and economic expansion.

Beyond technology, social and geopolitical factors have played a decisive role in shaping environmental outcomes. Since around 2021, the world has witnessed a resurgence of geopolitical tensions, wars, and regional conflicts. It is important that such situations are contained, de-escalated or resolved without resorting to wars. When conflicts persist or escalate, their consequences extend far beyond immediate humanitarian and security concerns, affecting energy systems, supply chains, environmental degradation, and long-term sustainability priorities.

Wars and military activities are highly carbon- and resource-intensive, involving large-scale fuel consumption, destruction of infrastructure, ecosystem damage, and post-conflict reconstruction. Yet, emissions from military operations remain largely untracked, underreported, and excluded from most national and international climate accounting frameworks. In times of conflict, environmental priorities are inevitably sidelined, even though the long-term ecological costs are immense.

At the social level, this quarter-century has also seen growing inequality, displacement, and polarization, both within and between nations. Climate change impacts—such as extreme weather events, water stress, and food insecurity—disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, often exacerbating existing social and political tensions. In this sense, environmental stress is increasingly both a cause and a consequence of geopolitical instability.

Yet, there are also positive signals. Public awareness of climate and sustainability issues is higher than ever. Civil society, industry, cities, and sub-national actors have increasingly stepped in where global consensus has been slow. The energy transition, while uneven, is no longer a fringe agenda—it is firmly embedded in mainstream economic and strategic thinking.

Ultimately, the experience of 2000–2025 underscores a central lesson: technology alone is not enough. Sustainable progress requires stable geopolitics, inclusive growth, effective institutions, and long-term leadership. Without these, even the most promising technological solutions risk being diluted or delayed.

Economic Shift

The period 2000–2025 has witnessed a profound rebalancing of global economic power, marked by the rise of Asia as a central driver of global growth. China and India, in particular, have emerged as major economic and technological players, complemented by established and emerging economies such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

This shift has been underpinned by several structural factors: demographic scale, urbanization, manufacturing depth, expanding domestic markets, improvements in education and skills, and large-scale investments in infrastructure, energy, and digital connectivity. Asia has become not only a manufacturing hub but increasingly a center for innovation, consumption, and capital formation.

Global supply chains have been significantly reconfigured during this period. While earlier decades were dominated by a largely West-centric economic model, the current quarter-century has seen production, value addition, and technological capability move steadily eastward. At the same time, Asia’s integration into the global economy has been deep, complex, and mutually interdependent rather than isolated.

For India and China, this rise has also brought greater geopolitical visibility and responsibility. Economic strength has translated into a stronger voice in global institutions, trade negotiations, climate discussions, and technology standards. Yet this shift has not been linear or frictionless. It has generated competition, strategic realignments, and periodic tensions with established Western powers.

Importantly, the relationship between Asia and the West during this period has been characterized by both rivalry and collaboration. Large-scale investments, technology transfers, research partnerships, and financial flows continue in both directions. Global challenges—such as climate change, pandemics, financial stability, and energy security—have reinforced the reality that economic competition coexists with deep interdependence.

Looking ahead, this economic rebalancing is likely to continue into the next quarter-century. The key question will not be whether Asia remains central to global growth, but how this multipolar economic order is managed—and whether cooperation, rules-based engagement, and shared responsibility can keep pace with shifting power dynamics.

Artificial Intelligence

Finally, Artificial Intelligence (AI)—which has seen rapid and visible deployment over the last two to three years—is once again transforming how humans work, learn, design, analyze, and decide. While AI has existed conceptually and academically for decades, advances in computing power, data availability, algorithms, and cloud infrastructure have enabled it to move from laboratories into everyday professional and personal life.

AI is already reshaping knowledge work—from drafting documents and analyzing large datasets to coding, design optimization, diagnostics, forecasting, and decision support. In sectors such as energy, transportation, healthcare, finance, education, and governance, AI is being increasingly used to improve efficiency, reduce costs, enhance predictive capabilities, and manage complex systems at scales that were previously unthinkable.

In the context of energy and climate, AI holds particular promise. It can help optimize grid operations, forecast renewable generation, manage storage and demand response, improve resource assessment, and accelerate research and development cycles. Properly applied, AI can become a powerful enabler of the energy transition rather than just another consumer of energy.

At the same time, AI raises fundamental questions—about employment, skill displacement, data ownership, bias, misinformation, concentration of power, and ethical governance. Like all transformative technologies, AI is value-neutral; its societal impact will depend on how thoughtfully and responsibly it is deployed.

What is clear, however, is that AI represents another inflection point—comparable in significance to the internet or mobile communications. It is a tool of immense capability now placed in human hands. Whether it amplifies human creativity and problem-solving or deepens existing inequalities will depend on policy choices, institutional frameworks, and collective wisdom.

As we enter the next quarter-century, AI is likely to become not just a tool we use, but a co-pilot in many aspects of human endeavor—reshaping work, governance, and innovation in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Closing Thought

Looking back, it is clear that 2000–2025 was not just a period of change—it was a period of transformation. As professionals and participants in this era, we did not merely witness history; we shaped it.

A Personal Reflection on These 25 Years

Looking back over this quarter-century, these 25 years have been particularly action-packed for me, unfolding in parallel with major technological transformations and the global energy transition. One of the most striking shifts I witnessed firsthand was wind power’s evolution—from a marginal and often-dismissed idea into a mainstream and globally accepted energy solution.

Much of my professional engagement lay at the interphase of policy, technology, and entrepreneurship. A significant portion of this journey involved foundational and mentoring work, particularly around business insights and analytical capability-building. Over the years, I became involved in a wide spectrum of wind-related initiatives spanning manufacturing, consulting, project development, and private-equity–led Independent Power Producer (IPP) roles. My analytical and consulting footprint expanded well beyond India, extending to countries such as Mauritius, Malaysia, Kenya, Yemen, Algeria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Bhutan.

I also represented industry stakeholders across multiple platforms, including the Indian Wind Energy Association, the Indian Wind Power Association, and the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA). In these roles, I contributed to broader sectoral initiatives, including early efforts related to offshore wind development.

Alongside industry engagement, I maintained a strong connection with analytical and academic work. This included the assessment of India’s wind power potential in 2011 and 2015, as well as supporting the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) in developing its own national wind potential estimation framework. More recently, my intellectual curiosity expanded into cosmology, where I proposed the concept of the Effective Age of the Universe (EAoU)—a framework that, to some extent, helps address what is commonly referred to as cosmological tension. In a related line of inquiry at the interface of philosophy and physics, I highlighted cognizance as a fundamental and often-overlooked component of the measurement process itself. Several papers on cosmology have been published over the past three years.

On the international front, I served as the International Programme Coordinator for WWEC 2006—the largest wind energy conference ever held in India—and later for WWEC 2021, which was conducted virtually during the COVID period. In 2017, at Malmö, I was elected Vice President and Technical Chair of the World Wind Energy Association, and subsequently have served as its Honorary Vice President till date.

• Jami Hossain

3i/Atlas – We don’t know what is out there..

By Jami Hossain

3I/ATLAS, the interstellar comet currently moving through the inner Solar System, has drawn global scientific attention. After passing the Sun, it will soon make its closest approach to Earth before continuing outward on its hyperbolic escape trajectory. Based on current assessments, 3I/ATLAS likely originated in the Milky Way’s thick disk, a region populated by ancient stars and long-evolved stellar debris. If this is correct, then with a transit velocity of roughly 60 km/s relative to the Sun, the comet could have been travelling for six billion years—longer than the Sun itself has existed.

In a galaxy as vast and active as ours, six billion years is an extraordinary span. One possibility is that the comet truly began its journey in the thick disk. Another is that it originated in a nearer stellar neighbourhood but entered the Solar System with a trajectory and velocity that mimic a more distant origin. Whatever the case, several profound questions arise.

The first concerns survival. For an object roughly the size of a major city, how did 3I/ATLAS remain intact over billions of years? To traverse the galaxy—through dense star fields, molecular clouds, planetary systems, supernova remnants, and countless gravitational perturbations—without fragmentation is statistically remarkable. Yet it arrived in a single coherent piece, erupting into a dramatic plume of outgassing as it passed near the Sun.

Alongside the scientific intrigue, a public controversy has emerged:
Is 3I/ATLAS a natural comet, or could it be something artificial?

Avi Loeb, Baird Professor of Science and Institute Director at Harvard University, has identified twelve anomalies in the behaviour of 3I/ATLAS that do not fit the standard comet model. Most scientists, however, maintain that it is a conventional interstellar comet. The question of artificiality is often dismissed out of habit—because no alien spacecraft has ever been confirmed, the default assumption is that none exist.

But this is not a logically rigorous position. The Milky Way contains 100–400 billion stars. The observable universe contains two trillion galaxies, giving an estimated 10²⁴ stars—more than all the grains of sand on Earth. The probability that our Sun is unique in hosting intelligent life is effectively zero. If other planetary systems exist—and if even one contains an advanced civilisation—then the possibility of artificial objects also exists. Rejecting the idea a priori is not scientific.

With 3I/ATLAS specifically, Loeb’s twelve anomalies invite careful examination, even if one ultimately accepts the natural model. The relevant publications are available for those who wish to evaluate the arguments directly here.

In a related CEPA post, we explored a rational scenario: If an extraterrestrial civilisation wished to explore another solar system discreetly, it would likely choose camouflage rather than spectacle. A brilliant metallic spacecraft would be an irrational choice. A comet-like object, by contrast, is ideal—common, expected, and capable of displaying irregularities without provoking alarm.

Comets are ubiquitous throughout the cosmos. When captured by a star’s gravity, they follow elliptical paths. Others, however, arrive on hyperbolic trajectories and simply pass through. Only three such interstellar visitors have ever been observed: 1I/ʻOumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and now 3I/ATLAS. If even one were artificial, camouflage would be the obvious strategy—not out of hostility, but out of prudence. Just as humans would avoid announcing their presence in an unknown star system, any other intelligent species would also act cautiously.

Meanwhile, Earth’s existence is no longer hidden. For a century, our radio and television broadcasts have expanded outward, reaching approximately 100 light-years. Our atmospheric biosignatures travel even farther. An advanced civilisation could already know far more about us than we imagine—including our technological capabilities. If so, their incentive to remain unseen only increases.

Perhaps 3I/ATLAS is simply a comet. Perhaps it is one of many such bodies passing silently through the outer Solar System. Or perhaps our galactic environment is more dynamic—and more populated—than we realise. The truth is that we do not know what is out there, and that uncertainty is precisely why 3I/ATLAS warrants deep scientific attention. Every interstellar object is a messenger from a region we cannot otherwise reach. Understanding these visitors is not speculation—it is necessary exploration.

As 3I/ATLAS departs the Solar System, it leaves behind a reminder:
The universe is vast, our knowledge limited, and the unknown always larger than the known.

Could an Interstellar Visitor Ever Be More Than It Appears?

The arrival of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has revived a question that lives quietly at the edge of astrophysics and strategic reasoning. Not the sensational query of whether it is artificial, but something more subtle and intellectually honest:

If an extraterrestrial intelligence were observing the Solar System, how would it choose to appear?

The popular expectation—that an advanced civilisation would announce itself openly, arrive in fancy star-trek-like space vehicles —may be the least realistic and least likely scenario. Any species capable of interstellar travel would also possess an understanding of risk, uncertainty, and the behavioural dynamics of encountering another intelligent society. Before they embark on any interstellar journey that may even take hundreds or millions of years, they design the journey with great caution. We can say caution is arguably a universal rational behaviour.

This leads to an intriguing possibility. If a civilisation wanted to examine a planetary system without attracting attention, the safest and most effective strategy would be a camouflage. And among all the natural forms it could emulate, a comet would be ideal.

Comets are expected.
Comets are variable.
Comets behave unpredictably without raising alarm.

They brighten and fade, shed material irregularly, accelerate due to outgassing, and regularly defy simple modelling. An object that appears mostly like a comet—but not perfectly—would still be classified as a comet, not a threat.

From a strategic standpoint, a comet-like disguise would be nearly perfect.

This becomes even clearer when the thought experiment is reversed. If humanity were ever to send an interstellar probe into another star system, would we broadcast our presence boldly? Or would we design something unobtrusive, passive, and difficult to distinguish from ordinary astrophysical debris? For durability, safety, and the avoidance of unintended escalation, the latter seems far more plausible. A darkened object. A dust-coated shell. A structure that mimicked a small asteroid or a comet nucleus. Such a probe would attract minimal notice.

Importantly, we do not claim that this is true for 3i Atlas. However, scientists are evaluating anomalies. While there is a great possibility that 3i Atlas is a natural object, one should not rule out some technological and artificial object. The NASA images to be releasd soon may shed more light on this aspect

What this reflection highlights instead is how interstellar visitors naturally broaden our conceptual space. They remind us that:

• our observational sample of extrasolar material is extremely small,

• our physical models are still evolving, and

• our assumptions often rest on a narrow view of cosmic variability.

Every new interstellar object expands the frontier of what we consider possible.

Ultimately, this line of thought is not about aliens.
It is about intelligence, in the abstract.
It is about how any careful species—human or otherwise—would behave when confronting uncertainty.
And it is about intellectual humility: an awareness that the universe is vast, our knowledge incomplete, and our curiosity perhaps our most defining trait.

Whether 3I/ATLAS proves entirely typical or intriguingly unusual, it has already succeeded in one respect:
it encourages us to look deeper, think more broadly, and remain open to the unfamiliar horizons that interstellar visitors reveal.

3I / ATLAS: Rethinking Our Approach to Interstellar Evidence

Avi Loeb, the Baird Professor of Science and Institute director at Harvard University and the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial” and "Interstellar" has become one of the most unconventional and visible scientific voices in recent years, particularly through his work on interstellar objects and his advocacy for bold scientific inquiry. His recent initiatives — especially 3I/Atlas is scientifically daring and aims to expand the way we detect, analyse, and interpret objects entering the Solar System from interstellar space.

While Loeb’s ideas often generate debate, they also raise important questions about how modern science approaches high-uncertainty, high-impact evidence — an issue where institutions like CEPA can play a unique role.

Interstellar Objects and the Case for New Observational Infrastructure

Following the discovery of ‘Oumuamua (2017) and Comet Borisov (2019), interest in interstellar visitors has grown dramatically. These objects provide rare opportunities to study material originating outside the Solar System, potentially carrying clues about:

• planetary formation mechanisms,

• astrophysical environments beyond our star,

• the diversity of interstellar matter,

• and even technological signals, if any existed.

Traditional astronomical surveys were not designed to track small, fast-moving interstellar bodies. Loeb argues that without new dedicated systems, humanity risks missing scientifically transformative data.

Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) — A Next-Generation All-Sky Surveillance System

Designed to provide rapid alerts for incoming objects with unusual trajectories, enabling telescopes to track them in real time.

Scientific Motivation: Beyond Conventional Models

Loeb’s work is frequently framed within speculative interpretations, but the stronger argument lies elsewhere:
our observational tools are incomplete.

Interstellar objects are:

• faint,

• dynamically fast,

• often detected too late,

• and require rapid coordinated follow-up.

Project 3I and ATLAS attempt to fill a clear scientific gap. Even without extraordinary claims, the scientific payoff is substantial:

• improved understanding of interstellar composition,

• constraints on galactic population distributions,

• comparisons between Solar System and non-local materials,

• and multidisciplinary applications (cosmochemistry, astrophysics, planetary science).

Why the Debate Matters?

Avi Loeb’s hypotheses — including the possibility of technological origins for certain anomalies (now 12 anomalies) — spark strong reactions. But the deeper issue is methodological:

• Do we allow unconventional hypotheses to guide new data acquisition, as long as experiments remain rigorous?

• How do we balance scientific conservatism with the possibility of rare, paradigm-shifting observations?

• Is modern astronomy under-instrumented for low-probability, high-impact events?

These questions go beyond Loeb; they relate to the future of scientific infrastructure, including how independent groups like CEPA might contribute to decentralized, open-source observational strategies.

A Role for Independent Research Initiatives

Projects like 3I demonstrate that meaningful scientific progress does not always require large institutional frameworks. Independent institutes, small research groups, and open-access platforms can contribute to:

• data interpretation,

• modelling trajectories and dynamics,

• testing alternative hypotheses,

• developing analytics around early-warning systems,

• and archiving open datasets for global research use.

CEPA’s intersection of physics, energy systems, and analytics is well-positioned to explore:

• computational modelling of interstellar trajectories,

• uncertainty quantification for rare-object detection,

• physics-informed AI systems for anomaly identification,

• statistical analysis of non-standard astrophysical signals.

Conclusion

Avi Loeb’s Project 3I and ATLAS initiative highlight a simple but profound idea:
we cannot answer the biggest scientific questions without first collecting the right data.

Regardless of where one stands on the interpretive spectrum, the push to build better observational tools for interstellar phenomena is timely, rational, and scientifically valuable.

For CEPA, the broader lesson is clear:
innovative science often begins where existing instruments and assumptions reach their limits.

Cosmological Tension: A Signal, not a Crisis

Modern cosmology has reached a stage where our measurements are precise enough that even small inconsistencies can become scientifically important. These mismatches, now grouped under the term cosmological tensions, are often described as cracks in the standard ΛCDM model. In reality, they tell us something deeper: the Universe is revealing information in ways that do not perfectly align with our current assumptions. At CEPA, we see these tensions not as failures of the model, but as signals directing us toward the next layer of physics.

Different cosmological observations probe different informational layers of the Universe. Local measurements—such as Cepheid variables and Type Ia supernovae—capture the late-time behaviour of an evolving, structured cosmos. Conversely, early-universe measurements, especially those derived from the cosmic microwave background, are built on a highly theoretical framework where the Universe behaves in a simpler, more uniform manner. When these observational regimes disagree, as they famously do in the case of the Hubble tension, it means the early- and late-universe information cannot be compressed into a single parameter consistently. This mismatch is not noise. It is structure.

Historically, similar discrepancies have been the starting point for major breakthroughs. The discovery of dark energy emerged from supernova observations that refused to fit expectations. The puzzle of the uniform CMB led to inflationary theory. Even the solar neutrino problem—an early and persistent tension—ultimately revealed neutrino oscillations and a deeper understanding of particle physics. Progress in cosmology has repeatedly come from the places where the Universe contradicted us.

In today’s era of high-precision cosmology, methodology has become inseparable from physics. Many modern tensions arise not purely from physical effects, but from the interplay between inference frameworks, calibration pipelines, nonlinear modelling, and machine learning tools used to extract cosmological parameters. As our instruments become more sensitive and our datasets more complex, the methods we use to process information begin to influence the physical interpretation itself. Cosmology is no longer only about what the Universe is doing—it is also about how we extract meaning from its signals.

From CEPA’s perspective, cosmological tension is a form of compressed information. It may indicate missing physical ingredients, overlooked relativistic effects, time-dependent parameters, or subtle mismatches between early- and late-universe modelling assumptions. It may also reveal how nonlinear structure growth influences measurements of expansion. But most importantly, tension shows us where our current models simplify the Universe too aggressively. It highlights the pressure points of ΛCDM—places where additional physics or improved analytics are most urgently needed.

Cosmological tension is not a crisis. It is the Universe refusing to be reduced prematurely. It is a directional signal, pointing toward deeper layers of understanding. At CEPA, we focus precisely on these regions of disagreement—where physics, analytics, and inference converge—and treat them as the most valuable opportunities for discovery.

CEPA Launch Announcement

Introducing the Centre for Energy, Physics, and Analytics

Today marks the official launch of the Centre for Energy, Physics, and Analytics (CEPA) — an independent research initiative dedicated to advancing open scientific inquiry across theoretical physics, energy systems, analytics, and the interconnected scientific domains shaped by them.

CEPA was founded to create space for rigorous thinking, conceptual exploration, and interdisciplinary research unconstrained by traditional institutional boundaries. As science moves toward deeper convergence — where physics, energy, computation, biology, and data-driven analytics intersect — CEPA aims to operate at this frontier.

With this launch, we also introduce two core components of our research ecosystem:

• CEPA-Despatch — our combined newsletter and blog for updates, short research reflections, notes, and commentary.

• CEPA-xiv — our open-access research archive for working papers, essays, conceptual sketches, and independent, early-stage scientific ideas.

In the coming weeks, CEPA will begin sharing:

• short research notes at the interface of physics, energy, analytics, and emerging sciences

• highlights from new entries in CEPA-xiv

• periodic updates on CEPA’s development as an initiative

• reflections on the evolving landscape of interdisciplinary research

Thank you for being present at the beginning.
We look forward to building CEPA into a meaningful space for scientific thought and independent exploration.

— CEPA

The Physics–Computation Boundary Is Disappearing

Short reflections from CEPA on the emerging scientific convergence between physical laws, computational models, and energy systems.

Over the past decade, the separation between physical theory and computational intelligence has steadily eroded. What used to be distinct domains — mathematical physics, energy engineering, machine learning, biological modeling — are now interacting with unprecedented depth.

At CEPA, we interpret this shift as an early signal of a broader structural change in scientific methodology:
computation is becoming physical, and physical systems are becoming computational.

AI models are increasingly governed by physical constraints

Large-scale machine learning systems are no longer abstract mathematical objects.
Their capabilities are shaped by:

• thermodynamic limits of hardware

• energy efficiency of training

• materials science of semiconductor fabrication

• physical layout of compute clusters

In other words, the “intelligence frontier” is now an energy frontier.

Physical systems are now modeled as computational systems

Modern physics and engineering increasingly rely on:

• differentiable simulations

• physics-informed neural networks (PINNs)

• generative models for materials discovery

• data–driven climate and fluid models

These tools blur the line between equation and algorithm, expanding the way physical theories are explored and tested.

Energy, information, and complexity are converging

Across fields, three quantities keep reappearing:

• energy (conservation, flows, dissipation)

• information (entropy, inference, learning)

• complexity (networks, emergence, adaptive systems)

This triad now shapes progress in:

• battery technologies

• renewable grid management

• genetic and biological modeling

• planetary-scale climate analytics

• quantum and condensed-matter systems

It suggests that the next phase of scientific insight may emerge from hybrid models that treat energy + information as inseparable.

CEPA’s position in this emerging landscape

This convergence is exactly why CEPA was created.

Our work sits at the interface of:

• theoretical physics

• energy systems

• computation, analytics, and data-driven science

CEPA will continue to explore this boundary — not as a collection of isolated topics, but as a single interconnected frontier.

- CEPA