Towards triggerless four-dimensional detectors for High Energy Physics collider experiments

High Energy Physics experiments at flagship colliders produce and process some of the biggest datasets on Earth, with the current generation of flagship experiments at the Large Hadron Collider producing more than a tenth of the world's total internet traffic every second.

Moreover the quantities of data produced have increased exponentially over the past decades and this trend shows no sign of slowing down.

In parallel, the use of picosecond timing is becoming more common in HEP detectors, enabling qualitatively new approaches to real-time processing and selections.

I review the planned introduction of precision timing information into the upcoming upgrades of the CMS, ATLAS, and LHCb experiments.

I discuss the ways in which the combination of timing and networking technology may enable future detectors to be designed as triggereless from the ground up, and reflect on the physics benefits of such a paradigm shift for the field.