How Google Stadia’s ‘negative latency’ might work

Google Stadia is going to feel more responsive than local hardware … eventually. At least, Stadia engineering boss Madj Bakar is making that claim in an interview in the latest issue of Edge magazine (via PCGamesN). That doesn’t seem possible, right?. Latency is inherent to sending video over the internet. You cannot break the laws of physics. Except, the laws of physics never counted on what Google is calling “negative latency.”

Stadia hasn’t launched yet, so gaming fans are dissecting the company’s every statement to figure out what to expect. And something like “negative latency” is ripe for that kind of speculation (and ridicule). But what is it — and can it really make Stadia more responsive than local hardware?