BHUBANESWAR: In a major breakthrough, a team of scientists and researchers from IIT-Bhubaneswar and other international institutions have come up with a technology that could help build future computers capable of solving difficult problems much faster while consuming only a fraction of energy used by today’s computing machines.
The team from IIT-Bhubaneswar, University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and Tohoku University (Japan), in the discovery published in the Nature Nanotechnology journal, have demonstrated the world’s largest synchronised network of more than 1,00,000 nanoscale spintronic oscillators, which are tiny magnetic devices that can work together like a perfectly coordinated orchestra.
The synchronised network is said to be nearly 1,000 times larger than previously demonstrated coherent spintronic systems, proving that such technology can be scaled up for practical applications and development of next-generation computing hardware.
The researchers said it has the potential to transform many areas of everyday life and the future applications may include faster and energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI), smarter communication networks, real-time data analysis, financial modelling and optimisation, intelligent transportation systems and scientific simulations that require enormous computing power.
According to the researchers, unlike conventional computer chips that process information sequentially, these miniature devices naturally synchronise with one another within only 45 billionths of a second (45 nanoseconds). Working together, they can process information extremely quickly while consuming far less energy than today’s electronic technologies.
Nilamani Behera, assistant professor in the department of physics at IIT-Bhubaneswar and one of the lead authors of the study, said the demand for computing power is growing rapidly, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence. “This opens exciting possibilities for developing future computing technologies that are both faster and far more energy-efficient,” Behera said.