Optical Chip to Train Machine Learning Hardware

An optical chip has been developed by a multi-institution research group that has the potential to train machine learning hardware. A picture of the chip used for this work. On a yearly basis, machine learning applications skyrocketed to $165B, per a recent McKinsey report. Training for modern-day artificial intelligence (AI) systems similar to Tesla's autopilot costs millions of dollars in electrical power consumption and needs supercomputer-like infrastructure. An ever-widening gap between demand for AI and computer hardware is left by this surging AI "appetite." Photonic integrated circuits, or optical chips, have evolved as a possible solution to provide greater computing performance, as quantified by the operations executed per second per watt utilized (TOPS/W).