In April 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore published a groundbreaking article detailing what he theorized would result in an exponential increase in the speed, power, and capability of computers in decades to come.
Powered by increases in the number of transistors on a circuit, “Moore’s Law”, as it came to be known, is a concept that’s still the subject of intense discussions 60 years later.
So how did Moore come to this conclusion? The cogs started turning after Moore was asked to offer a prediction on how the semiconductor industry would develop over the next decade in a piece for Electronics Magazine.
Moore noted the growing volume of components, such as transistors, diodes, capacitors, and resistors, had so far doubled on an annual basis. Given progress at that stage, he anticipated that it would continue on this path for at least the next decade.
The outcome of this rate of development would not only be more powerful computer chips, but crucially, cheaper chips, thereby creating a cycle of continued growth and expansion.
“From careful observation of an emerging trend, Moore extrapolated that computing would dramatically increase in power and decrease in relative cost at an exponential pace,” materials from Intel’s Tech 101 series note.
“Moore’s Law became the golden rule for the electronics industry, and a springboard for innovation. And Moore paved the way for Intel to make the faster, smaller, more affordable transistors that drive modern tools and toys.”
Intense debate
Moore’s Law has been the subject of intense debate in the intervening decades since his landmark article - as the pace of growth predicted actually continued far longer than he first anticipated.
By the turn of the millennium, the number of transistors on an individual chip increased more than 18,000 times, skyrocketing from 2,300 in 1971 to 42 million on a top-of-the-range Pentium 4 processor.
Moving deeper into the 2000s, questions began cropping up over whether this was slowing down. TechRadar noted that Moore’s Law was safe for at least another decade in 2012 - but by 2023 Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, a vocal long-time proponent of the concept, suggested transistors were doubling at a rate of three years, far behind what it should be.
Where do we go from here?
The days of exponential growth appear to be behind us, but Moore’s Law nonetheless remains a key focus for the industry in terms of the pace of development.
Moreover, the term itself isn’t necessarily restricted to chip development, with industry figures in other key areas drawing upon this concept to assess the pace of development in their respective fields.
Take generative AI, for example. In February 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman specifically pointed to Moore’s Law when discussing the pace of development in the AI industry.
Significant price drops associated with AI use since the advent of the generative AI ‘boom’ in late 2022, combined with more powerful models, bears similarities to the concept championed by Moore in the mid-1960s.
Of course, Altman was basing this on the cost of context tokens, which he noted had fallen around 10x over a yearly basis. Between 2023 to mid-2024, ChatGPT’s price per token dropped by around 150x.
