In a hypothetical post-AGI economy where artificial intelligence automates everything, growth would still face an unexpected bottleneck: energy production. According to a new analysis on LessWrong, the limiting factor isn't computing power or manufacturing capacity—it's how fast you can build solar panels and energy infrastructure. The research examines energy payback time: how long it takes a solar panel to generate the energy required to manufacture it. When researchers modeled this across an entire economy, it would constrain maximum growth to roughly forty-eight percent per year, rather than the theoretical ceiling of one hundred fifteen percent. Even unlimited AI can't speed up the physics of power generation.

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