Russian scientists to develop computer working at ‘speed of light’ by 2027 — researcher

SIRIUS /Federal territory/, November 29. /TASS/. In the next two years, scientists from the National Center for Physics and Mathematics (NCPM) of Russia will develop a working prototype of the most powerful hybrid electronic-photonic computing system, which will process data “at the speed of light,” NCPM lead researcher Alexander Sergeyev told TASS.
According to the researcher, the cooperation of scientists working on this project includes the leaders in this area of knowledge: the Russian Federal Nuclear Center – Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics and the Samara State University.
“The computing system, which combines electronics and photonics, is intended for super-rapid processing of data using neural network methods based on the optical artificial neural networks. Effectively, it will be a computer, whose co-processors compute at the speed of light. In the next two years, we plan to create a working prototype with processing speed of over 10 to the power of 19 operations per second, which significantly exceeds the current global level,” he said.
Sergeyev also noted that, unlike modern computers with their universal processors and graphics processing units, developed by the leading international companies, specialized computing system can significantly speed up the solution of a number of tasks – by 100 to 1000 times – possibly reaching the exaop level by 2030, all while significantly increasing the energy efficiency.