The team estimates that their hardware can outperform the best electronic processors by a factor of 100 in terms of energy efficiency and compute density.

A team of scientists from Oxford University and their partners from Germany and the UK have developed a new kind of AI hardware that uses light to process three-dimensional (3D) data. Based on integrated photonic-electronic chips, the hardware can perform complex calculations in parallel using different wavelengths and radio frequencies of light. The team claims their hardware can boost the data processing speed and efficiency for AI tasks by several orders of magnitude.

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AI computing and processing power

The research published today in the journal Nature Photonics addresses the challenge of meeting modern AI applications’ increasing demand for computing power. The conventional computer chips, which rely on electronics, need help to keep up with the pace of AI innovation, which requires doubling the processing power every 3.5 months. The team says that using light instead of electronics offers a new way of computing that can overcome this bottleneck.

NVIDIA, which is well known for its GPUs that made possible the training of ChatGPT, has also been working on its development platform, Omniverse, for building 3D tools and applications. Earlier this year, the company unveiled its Voyager AI agent that could build tools 15 times faster than other AI agents in Minecraft.

Speaking to partners last week as part of their annual Open Innovation Platform forum in Europe, a big portion of TSMC’s roadshow was dedicated to the next generation of the company’s foundry technology. TSMC’s 2 nm-class N2, N2P, and N2X process technologies are set to introduce multiple innovations, including nanosheet gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, backside power delivery, and super-high-performance metal-insulator-metal (SHPMIM) capacitor over the next few years. But in order to take advantage of these innovations, TSMC warns, chip designers will need to use all-new electronic design automation (EDA), simulation, and verification tools as well as IP. And while making such a big shift is never an easy task, TSMC is bringing some good news to chip designers early-on: even with N2 still a couple of years out, many of the major EDA tools, verification tools, foundation IP, and even analog IP for N2 are already available for use.

“For N2 we could be working with them two years in advance already because nanosheet is different,” said Dan Kochpatcharin, Head of Design Infrastructure Management at TSMC, at the OIP 2023 conference in Amsterdam. “[EDA] tools have to be ready, so what the OIP did is to work with them early. We have a huge engineering team to work with the EDA partners, IP partners, [and other] partners.”

*Chip density published by TSMC reflects ‘mixed’ chip density consisting of 50% logic, 30% SRAM, and 20% analog.

Disney’s latest robot combines art and technology to convey emotions through dynamic movements, showcased at IROS 2023.

In a captivating evening keynote address at the 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

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A legacy of emotion-driven robotics

Disney’s history in the realm of animatronics and robotics traces back to 1971, with the introduction of the animatronic Hall of Presidents at Disney World. Over the years, Disney has continuously strived to imbue its robots with emotions and expressions, creating immersive experiences for visitors. Yet, as robotic technology evolved, it posed new challenges—designing robots that evoke emotions and seamlessly integrate with real-world constraints.