Superconductors, brains, and light: the future of advanced computing

For over 50 years, progress in computing has been made largely through lithographic advances which enabled ever-smaller transistors. This era of straightforward scaling is now coming to a close, and an age of true innovation in computing has arrived. To overcome processor-memory bottlenecks, integrated photonic communication links are being utilized. To minimize power consumption, superconducting materials are being employed. And to maximize computational efficiency, distributed architectures emulating the brain are being pursued. Each of these innovations address near-term needs for advanced computing while simultaneously offering opportunities for truly disruptive technologies in the longer-term. In this talk we’ll explore how these departures from conventional computing, when taken together, may lead to powerful computing systems which are very different from the information-processing tools we know today.