E pluribus unum: The Internet | 12 Mar 2025 | 250 years of US innovation | Issue 6 | UBS

1. TL;DR

The internet evolved from a decentralized Cold War defense project into a global commercial fabric, now entering a new phase of AI-driven productivity and terabit-scale connectivity through 6G and optical innovations.

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2. Key findings

• Packet Switching: This decentralized architecture ensures network resilience by routing data through redundant nodes (p.5).
• Protocol Standardization: TCP/IP and Ethernet transformed fragmented local networks into a unified, global system (p.7).
• Fiber Optic Revolution: Pure glass fibers carry 65,000x more data than copper, breaking 1970s bandwidth constraints (p.5).
• Commercialization Pivot: The 1995 Netscape IPO shifted the web from an academic tool to a universal commercial interface (p.7).
• Infrastructure Foundation: 1990s overinvestment in fiber laid the physical groundwork for today's cloud and mobile economies (p.9).