Kardashev index
0.731
Based on primary energy power · Type I = 1
AccelerationFour-dimensional viewRight now
2026
AI Agents
AI begins operating computers autonomously, programming for hours on end and solving hard math problems, while frontier models iterate week by week.
Art style · Contemporary large-format night photography
Origin of Life on EarthDinosaurs and MammalsAI Agents
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Civilization metrics
Each sparkline shows the documented history of a metric on a logarithmic time axis. The dot marks the selected moment.
8.35Bpeople
Comparable to today
2×10¹³W
Comparable to today
8.1×10¹⁰floating-point operations per second per dollar (FLOP/s per $, nominal dollars)
Comparable to today
0.03 seconds
Comparable to today
39,897km/h
Comparable to today
Near this moment
The eight closest milestones. Select a title to jump there.
A cybersecurity-specific model offered only to vetted partners. Source
Ties GPT-5.6 Sol on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Source
Up to $105 billion supports the first 4.25 gigawatts of compute at the Ohio campus, coming online from 2028. Source
Base pricing is unchanged; cache-read prices drop by 75%. Source
OpenAI rolls out GPT-6 Astra in stages, with cybersecurity program participants first. Source
Approaches Fable 5.1 on most tasks at 40% lower running cost than Opus 5. Source
OpenAI launches GPT-6's flagship and lightweight models at half the API price of the 5.6 series. Source
Google unveils a new frontier model with the per-response output limit raised to 1 million tokens. Source
Scenes across eras
Each era illustrated in its own style.
Every timeline entry cites its source. Metrics interpolate logarithmically between sourced data points. Forecasts include institutional and community views, and attributed site scenarios; years are not guaranteed realization dates. Illustrations are AI-generated in each era's style.