Optical computing for deep learning with a programmable nanophotonic processor NextBigFuture.com

Soljačić says that many researchers over the years have made claims about optics-based computers, but that "people dramatically over-promised, and it backfired." While many proposed uses of such photonic computers turned out not to be practical, a light-based neural-network system developed by this team "may be applicable for deep-learning for some applications," he says. Traditional computer architectures are not very efficient when it comes to the kinds of calculations needed for certain important neural-network tasks. Such tasks typically involve repeated multiplications of matrices, which can be very computationally intensive in conventional CPU or GPU chips. After years of research, the MIT team has come up with a way of performing these operations optically instead.