MIT $100K winner’s optical chips perform AI computations at light speed

Thursday, May 18, 2017 - 15:31 in Physics & Chemistry

The big winner at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition aims to drastically accelerate artificial-intelligence computations — to light speed. Devices such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, as well as self-driving cars, all rely on artificial intelligence algorithms. But the chips powering these innovations, which use electrical signals to do computations, could be much faster and more efficient. That’s according to MIT team Lightmatter, which took home the $100,000 Robert P. Goldberg grand prize from last night’s competition for developing fully optical chips that compute using light, meaning they work many times faster — using much less energy — than traditional electronics-based chips. These new chips could be used to power faster, more efficient, and more advanced artificial-intelligence devices. “Artificial intelligence has affected or will affect all industries,” said Nick Harris, an MIT PhD student, during the team’s winning pitch to a capacity crowd in the Kresge Auditorium. “We’re bringing the next...

Read the whole article on MIT Research

More from MIT Research

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net