Light-Based Chips Promise to Slash Energy Use and Increase Speed

• 作者: Mitch Leslie
• 来源期刊: 工程（英文）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（9）
• 所属期刊栏目: News&Highlights
• 页码范围: 1195-1196
• 页数: 2页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Computers already gobble a large share of the world's electrical power,and their energy demand will likely soar with the deploy-ment of more and more power-hungry artificial intelligence(AI)systems[1].In a step that might reduce AI's electricity use and envi-ronmental impact,Lightmatter,a startup based in Boston,MA,USA,announced that it has developed a microchip that performs calcula-tions with light and requires about one-sixth the energy of a com-parable electronic chip(Fig.1)[2].Other companies are developing similar photon-based chips for AI and for many other uses,includ-ing self-driving cars and quantum computing[3,4].