Light-Powered Computers Brighten AI's Future

The idea of building a computer that uses light rather than electricity goes back more than half a century. "Optical computing" has long promised faster performance while consuming much less energy than conventional electronic computers. The prospect of a practical optical computer has languished, however, as scientists have struggled to make the light-based components needed to outshine existing computers. Despite these setbacks, optical computers might now get a fresh start--researchers are testing a new type of photonic computer chip, which could pave the way for artificially intelligent devices as smart as self-driving cars, but small enough to fit in one's pocket. A conventional computer relies on electronic circuits that switch one another on and off in a dance carefully choreographed to correspond to, say, the multiplication of two numbers.