In light of US sanctions, China unveils first parallel optical computing chip named Meteor-1

Good news, if you can call it that! Developed by the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM).

"China can’t buy Nvidia’s RTX 4090. Now its optical chip is twice as fast"

"Chinese researchers have developed the first highly parallel optical computing integrated chip, named “Meteor-1”, setting a milestone for using light to perform an enormous number of operations at the same time, the scientists say. ..."

Google AI Search results:

"The Meteor-1 is a significant development in China's pursuit of advanced computing technology, particularly in optical computing. 

Here's a summary of its key aspects:

Pioneering Optical Computing Chip: The Meteor-1 is described as China's first highly parallel optical computing integrated chip. It utilizes light (photons) instead of electrons for data processing, offering advantages like ultra-high speed, broad bandwidth, and low power consumption.

Focus on Parallelism: Unlike previous optical computing efforts that focused on expanding the size of the computing matrix, the Meteor-1 aims for higher parallelism by increasing the number of simultaneous tasks it can handle. It incorporates over 100 distinct frequency channels within one photonic platform, enabling a hundredfold increase in "optical computility".

Performance:

• Theoretical peak computing power exceeding 2,560 TOPS (tera-operations per second) at a 50 GHz optical clock.
• This performance is reportedly comparable to Nvidia's advanced GPUs like the RTX 4090.
• The chip boasts an energy efficiency of over 3.2 TOPS/W.

Key Technological Features:

• Soliton micro-comb source: This on-chip light source generates multiple wavelengths, eliminating the need for hundreds of discrete lasers, reducing system complexity, power consumption, and cost.
• MZI network: Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) network is used for signal processing.
• High transmission bandwidth: Offers a transmission bandwidth above 40nm for low-latency parallel operations.
• Custom-designed driver board: Features over 256 channels for precise optical signal control.

..."

P.S. I briefly visited the english language webpages of the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM). Insecure, quite lousy, and very outdated!

In light of US sanctions, China unveils first parallel optical computing chip, ‘Meteor-1’ | South China Morning Post

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