An international team of researchers, including Professor Roberto Morandotti of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), just introduced a new photonic processor that could revolutionize artificial intelligence, as reported by the prestigious journal Nature.

Artificial neural networks, layers of interconnected artificial neurons, are of great interest for machine learning tasks such as speech recognition and medical diagnosis. Actually, electronic computing hardware are nearing the limit of their capabilities, yet the demand for greater computing power is constantly growing.

Researchers turned themselves to photons instead of electrons to carry information at the speed of light. In fact, not only photons can process information much faster than electrons, but they are the basis of the current Internet, where it is important to avoid the so-called electronic bottleneck (conversion of an optical signal into an electronic signal, and vice versa).

Increased Computing Speed
The proposed optical neural network is capable of recognizing and processing large-scale data and images at ultra-high computing speeds, beyond ten trillion operations per second. Professor Morandotti, an expert in integrated photonics, explains how an optical frequency comb, a light source comprised of many equally spaced frequency modes, was integrated into a computer chip and used as a power-efficient source for optical computing.

This device performs a type of matrix-vector multiplication known as a convolution for image-processing applications. It shows promising results for real-time massive-data machine learning tasks, such as identifying faces in cameras or pathology identification in clinical scanning applications. Their approach is scalable and trainable to much more complex networks for demanding applications such as unmanned vehicles and real-time video recognition, allowing, in a not-so-far future, a full integration with the up-and-coming Internet of Things.

Research paper

Related Links
Institut national de la recherche scientifique
All about the robots on Earth and beyond!

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Pandemic's robot 'heroes' highlight their value at tech show
Washington (AFP) Jan 12, 2021
Robots that helped people survive and stay safe over the past year are touting their value at the tech industry's annual extravaganza amid a pandemic which has given fresh momentum to the robotics sector. The Consumer Electronics Show, which is being held online this year due to the global crisis, includes robots that have become "heroes" for many during the coronavirus pandemic. Among those taking the virtual stage at CES are robot companions, concierges, cooks, delivery drones, medical assista ... read more