By Donna Lu

It’s the smartest piece of glass in the world. Zongfu Yu at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his colleagues have created a glass artificial intelligence that uses light to recognise and distinguish between images. What’s more, the glass AI doesn’t need to be powered to operate.

The proof-of-principle glass AI that Yu’s team created can distinguish between handwritten single digit numbers. It can also recognise, in real time, when a number it is presented with changes – for instance, when a 3 is altered to an 8.