Latest news with #opticalcomputing
South China Morning Post
9 hours ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
China's optical chip advances such as Meteor-1 light the way for AI development
China's recent advances in the development of high-performance chips, including research published on the new Meteor-1 parallel optical computing integrated chip, could transform the artificial intelligence industry, say analysts. In recent months, several research teams have made strides that could boost generative AI, which has an increasing computing demand for AI model development, training and deployment. Electronic chips, which have made everything AI possible so far, appear to be reaching their limits in terms of speed and size or scalability, prompting scientists to focus more on optical alternatives using light, or the photons within, instead of electrons to transfer data. 02:17 Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveils plan to build 'AI supercomputer' in Taiwan Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveils plan to build 'AI supercomputer' in Taiwan Light offers degrees of freedom that an electrical signal does not, according to Amit Agrawal, associate professor in optical engineering at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at the university's Trinity College. Agrawal said light transmitted data better and faster than electric signals, meaning more operations could be done when using its inherent capabilities. 'The novelty is the hardware,' Agrawal said. While competing technologies had been shown to use 10 or 20 light channels for data transfer, he said the Chinese scientists showed a 100-fold increase in computility, an advance he said 'is quite significant'. Nathan Youngblood, associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Pittsburgh, said that in effect the theoretical content applied in the research was not new to the international science field.
South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
China's mosquito-sized drone, how exercise slows ageing: 7 science highlights
We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing A robotics laboratory at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) in central China's Hunan province has developed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military operations. Chinese researchers say they have developed the world's first highly parallel optical computing integrated chip, named 'Meteor-1'. Photo: Handout Chinese researchers have developed the first highly parallel optical computing integrated chip, named 'Meteor-1', setting a milestone for using light to perform an enormous number of operations at the same time, the scientists say.
