Energy and Information: A Framework for Human Progress

Energy and Information: A Framework for Human Progress develops a framework arguing that the history of civilisation can be understood through two variables: our mastery over energy, and our mastery over information. The paper also describes four mechanisms that define mastery: generation, refinement/organisation, distribution, and application, using historical examples to illustrate how technological advancement in these fields impacts human progress. We apply this framework to revolutionary moments throughout history to demonstrate that periods of transformative growth follow a consistent pattern: a constraint on one variable is lifted, setting off a cycle of rapid change that reshapes how societies organise and produce, until the other variable becomes the new bottleneck. From the Agricultural Revolution to the printing press to the steam engine, the same logic recurs across millennia and across entirely different technologies and social structures.

This research white paper draws on years of internal investment research at Castleforge, historical data, and our own direct experience investing in and expanding Redhill, a data centre development just outside London – which has given us a ground-level perspective on the pressures the paper describes.

We wrote this paper because we think that pattern is playing out again today, and that it has direct consequences for the global economy. AI is developing rapidly as a tool for processing the enormous volumes of data that modern society produces – potentially a step change in humanity’s capacity to convert information into productive use. But realising that potential depends on energy infrastructure that is, by most measures, acting as a bottleneck to progress. Ageing grids, congested connection queues, and structural underinvestment in transmission are tightening supply at precisely the moment demand is set to accelerate – driven not just by data centres, but by the broader electrification of heating, industry, and transport.

This paper does not set out to make specific asset calls or to suggest that any particular sector offers straightforward upside simply because it sits at a structural inflection point. Rather, it articulates the worldview that sits behind every investment and operational decision we make. We believe that having a solid framework with which to view the world gives us a basis to identify where opportunities lie in the market.