The future of high-speed computing may be larger CPUs with optics

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The future of high-speed computing may be larger CPUs with optics
Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 2020/01/02
This is pretty far down the ed tech stack, but I want to take note because I've been seeing an increase in the number of events in this area lately. The area in question could be described under the general heading of 'optical computing'. The idea is to use light-based components, rather than electricity-based components. There are numerous issues that have been solved, and many more to go, but the potential is for faster and more energy-efficient computers. This article is from last April - what prompted me to cover optical computing today was an ed tech review of an 'optica' computer (which as it turned out has nothing to do with optical computing). More...