How do supermassive black holes form so early?

Quasars powered by black holes of 10^9 solar masses have been observed at redshifts greater than 7, less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Standard accretion timescales make this hard to explain.

Proposed pathways include direct collapse of massive gas clouds, super-Eddington accretion, or growth from primordial black holes. JWST observations are sharpening — but not yet settling — the question.