Microsoft boasted of building the first computer that completely eliminates the need to use transistors, i.e. semiconductor elements that are the basis of modern electronics. All this to bypass Moore’s law and significantly accelerate technological progress.
The optical computer of the future. It uses photons and electrons for calculations
Moore’s law assumes that the number of transistors in integrated circuits, and therefore the computing power of computers, doubles every 24 months. Meanwhile, Microsoft decided to build a computer of the future that bypasses this rule. To make this possible, the company’s research team abandoned transistors and opted for a completely different technology. “If you only have a hammer at your disposal, you can only solve problems by hammering in nails” – He explains that the way to accelerate technological development is to bypass your own limitations.
The computer is called the Analog Iterative Machine (AIM) and is the result of three years of work by a multidisciplinary group of scientists from the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge. It is an analog optical machine that uses not an electrical signal that flows between the processor, memory and other components to transmit information, but “photons and electrons”. It works by sending and capturing beams of photons of varying intensity that travel at the speed of light. By measuring them, the machine is supposed to perform addition and multiplication operations, which, as the company writes, are “the basis of optimization problems”. What’s more, the whole process is to take place in one place of the computer, which speeds up its operation.
Microsoft has created a computer that counts at the speed of light. Like an abacus for the 21st century photo Microsoft
Microsoft has created a computer that counts at the speed of light
Microsoft assumes that ready-made, more advanced versions of AIM will be able to perform calculations about one hundred times faster than today’s most powerful digital computers. The machine will be suitable for very limited applications. First of all, it is to be used to solve extremely complex mathematical tasks and “optimization problems”. As an example, the service gives the popular traveling salesman problem, the solution of which can help reduce the cost of, for example, the route. Traditional computers do not cope well with puzzles that require comparing many combinations in order to find the optimal one in a short time.
The AIM computer is still in the research phase and will not be available to the general public. As part of the agreement concluded by Microsoft, the machine will be tested at the center of the British financial company Barclays for the next year. The British are to test its potential in the analysis of the huge number of concluded transactions, the number of which is constantly increasing – by several hundred thousand every day.
Source: Gazeta
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