AI models are power hogs. As the algorithms grow and become more complex, they’re increasingly taxing current computer chips. Multiple companies have designed chips tailored to AI to reduce power draw. But they’re all based on one fundamental rule—they use electricity. This month, a team from Tsinghua University in China switched up the recipe. They built a neural network chip that uses light rather than electricity to run AI tasks at a fraction of the energy cost of NVIDIA’s H100, a state-of-the-art chip used to train and run AI models. Called Taichi, the chip combines two types of light-base ..read more

As the world rushes to make use of the latest wave of AI technologies, one piece of high-tech hardware has become a surprisingly hot commodity: the graphics processing unit, or GPU. A top-of-the-line GPU can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and leading manufacturer Nvidia has seen its market valuation soar past $2 trillion as demand for its products surges. GPUs aren’t just high-end AI products, either. There are less powerful GPUs in phones, laptops, and gaming consoles, too. By now you’re probably wondering: What is a GPU, really? And what makes them so special? What Is a GPU? GPUs wer ..read more

Technology innovation requires solving hard technical problems, right? Well, yes. And no. As the Apple Macintosh turns 40, what began as Apple prioritizing the squishy concept of “user experience” in its 1984 flagship product is, today, clearly vindicated by its blockbuster products since. It turns out that designing for usability, efficiency, accessibility, elegance, and delight pays off. Apple’s market capitalization is now over $2.8 trillion, and its brand is every bit associated with the term “design” as the best New York or Milan fashion houses are. Apple turned technology into fashion, a ..read more

Back in 2017, my editor published an article titled “The Next Great Computer Interface Is Emerging—But It Doesn’t Have a Name Yet.” Seven years later, which may as well be a hundred in technology years, that headline hasn’t aged a day. Last week, UploadVR broke the news that Apple won’t allow developers for their upcoming Vision Pro headset to refer to applications as VR, AR, MR, or XR. For the past decade, the industry has variously used terms like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR) to describe technologies that include things like VR h ..read more

A supercomputer scheduled to go online in April 2024 will rival the estimated rate of operations in the human brain, according to researchers in Australia. The machine, called DeepSouth, is capable of performing 228 trillion operations per second. It’s the world’s first supercomputer capable of simulating networks of neurons and synapses (key biological structures that make up our nervous system) at the scale of the human brain. DeepSouth belongs to an approach known as neuromorphic computing, which aims to mimic the biological processes of the human brain. It will be run from the Internationa ..read more

A tiny ball of brain cells hums with activity as it sits atop an array of electrodes. For two days, it receives a pattern of electrical zaps, each stimulation encoding the speech peculiarities of eight people. By day three, it can discriminate between speakers. Dubbed Brainoware, the system raises the bar for biocomputing by tapping into 3D brain organoids, or “mini-brains.” These models, usually grown from human stem cells, rapidly expand into a variety of neurons knitted into neural networks. Like their biological counterparts, the blobs spark with electrical activity—suggesting they have th ..read more

Quantum advantage is the milestone the field of quantum computing is fervently working toward, when a quantum computer can solve problems that are beyond the reach of the most powerful non-quantum, or classical, computers. Quantum refers to the scale of atoms and molecules where the laws of physics as we experience them break down and a different, counterintuitive set of laws apply. Quantum computers take advantage of these strange behaviors to solve problems. There are some types of problems that are impractical for classical computers to solve, such as cracking state-of-the-art encryption al ..read more

As a weapon of war, destroying cultural heritage sites is a common method by armed invaders to deprive a community of their distinct identity. It was no surprise then, in February of 2022, as Russian troops swept into Ukraine, that historians and cultural heritage specialists braced for the coming destruction. So far in the Russia-Ukraine War, UNESCO has confirmed damage to hundreds of religious and historical buildings and dozens of public monuments, libraries, and museums. While new technologies like low-cost drones, 3D printing, and private satellite internet may be creating a distinctly 21 ..read more

The scale of quantum computers is growing quickly. In 2022, IBM took the top spot with its 433-qubit Osprey chip. Yesterday, Atom Computing announced they’ve one-upped IBM with a 1,180-qubit neutral atom quantum computer. The new machine runs on a tiny grid of atoms held in place and manipulated by lasers in a vacuum chamber. The company’s first 100-qubit prototype was a 10-by-10 grid of strontium atoms. The new system is a 35-by-35 grid of ytterbium atoms (shown above). (The machine has space for 1,225 atoms, but Atom has so far run tests with 1,180.) Quantum computing researchers are working ..read more

The brain is an exceptionally powerful computing machine. Scientists have long tried to recreate its inner workings in mechanical minds. A team from IBM may have cracked the code with NorthPole, a fully digital chip that mimics the brain’s structure and efficiency. When pitted against state-of-the-art graphics processing units (GPUs)—the chips most commonly used to run AI programs—IBM’s brain-like chip triumphed in several standard tests, while using up to 96 percent less energy. IBM is no stranger to brain-inspired chips. From TrueNorth to SpiNNaker, they’ve spent a decade tapping into the br ..read more