There are arguments that the brain is quantum, as in parts of it locally using quantum effects. Which if true, might make a counter-argument, as there will be bigger data centers needed if the goal is to simulate the brain classically.

On the other side, advancement in quantum computers would make current LLM inference much faster. Because of the extreme cooling needed, i dont think the energy demand would become less.

With AI companies talking about AGI, i sometimes wonder if they really need the machines for serving inference to customers, or they have a formula for computational capacity that could run an AGI, and they just want to reach that level.

And a breakthrough in hardware, specifically.