A battle between Optical and Electronic Computing

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While this post blog is being written electrons are responsible for computing and photons are used for carrying data worldwide. Before optical fiber’s first implementation electrons had been used for both computing and transmitting tasks. It is viable for photons to take also computing tasks over electrons, which can lead to the development of optical computers. What are the advantages and limitations of optical computing and how does it differ from a conventional one, you will find out the answer after reading this post.

Difference between optical and electronic computing: Optical computers use photons to transmit data and perform operations, while traditional electronic computers use electrons to transmit data and perform operations.

Difference between photons and electrons:
Photons are electrically neutral, which enables crossing each other without interacting. On the contrary, protons don’t have this feature, which creates the main difference between them. It means that glass fibers can handle many simultaneous signals in a way that copper wires cannot. That is why optical computing can potentially operate at much faster speeds than electronic because photons can transmit data much more quickly than electrons, moreover, it solves the issue of parallelism. It enables performing more than one calculation simultaneously, which is impossible in the case of electronic computing. This could make optical computers much more efficient and faster at performing certain types of calculations. What types of calculations? Optical computing is efficient in resolving calculations of linear algebra and profoundly worse at different types of calculations. But taking into account that linear algebra is fundamental to machine learning so generally for AI, we can assume that the technology can bring many advantages in the future.

Advantages of Optical technology:

  • Using photons reduces power consumption compared with the usage of protons. It is associated with the electrical resistance of protons, which generates heat and, wastes energy. The passage of photons through transparent media is resistance-free.
  • Unlike standard computers, which only can make one calculation simultaneously, optical computers could do lots of calculations at the same time.

Potential Usecases:

  • It is possible to implement it in devices that cannot be equipped with electronic chips because of the low capacity of the battery, owing to less energy consumption optical chips could eliminate the need for communication between a device and server, which is responsible for making complex computing and sending a response back to the device, which is time-consuming and insecure.
  • Optical computing is able to handle big data sets, which would enable to work with high-resolution pictures in facial recognition and object detection processes, which makes them faster and much more accurate.

Disadvantages of optical computing:

  • Complexity: Building optical computers can be technically challenging because it requires the development of specialized components and materials.
  • Limited applications: Optical computers may not be suitable for all types of applications, because they may not be able to perform certain kinds of calculations as efficiently as electronic computers.

Summary: All things considered, optical technology is in the early stage of development. With new improvements and ideas to enhance its diversity of use and production of optical computers, it will gradually be taking over conventional technology. Assuming, that the demand for computing power enormously has increased and will increase, and AI applications have required and will require better efficiency, we can be almost sure that in the near future optical technology so also optical computers or hybrid ones will be desired by markets.

Sources:
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/12/20/artificial-intelligence-and-the-rise-of-optical-computing

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