International computer giant IBM has unveiled its vision for a "supercomputer in a sugarcube" powered by "electronic blood".
The aim is to base the design on the workings of the
human brain in order to surmount some of the difficulties - delivering
power and removing the excess heat - that computer engineers are
currently encountering as they seek to make chips smaller and faster.
The heat problem effectively doubles the running
cost of a computer, because nearly as much energy has to be spent on
cooling as on computing.
Current figures suggest that just running the
Internet accounts annually - in energy terms - for an equivalent amount
of CO2 as the airline industry, and computing generally equates to a
global spend of over $30 billion just making hot air.
But, to make processors more compact and run even
faster, chips will need to shrink, partly to reduce the distances - and
hence time - over which information needs to be transmitted and to pack
in more processing power. Doing so, though, will intensify the present
problems.
So IBM have turned to the human brain for
inspiration because, despite consuming energy at the rate of only about
20 watts, the brain is, according to IBM researchers Patrick Ruch and
Bruno Michel, "10,000 more dense and efficient than any computer around
today."
This they put down to the fact that the brain solves
several problems in one: the 3D structure of the brain makes it highly
compact, and it uses a highly efficient circulatory (blood) system to
deliver energy and keep the operating environment right for optimal
performance of the components.
According to Michel, the brain uses "40% of its
volume for function and 10% for energy and cooling." The best current
computers, on the other hand, devote only about 1% to processing!
Instead, Michel and Ruch propose to pile up
processors like the chip equivalent of a skyscraper to boost computing
power; then, they'll keep them cool by circulating a fluid - "electronic
blood" - through special channels within the chips to soak up heat; and
- here's the really clever bit - they'll also use the same fluid to
power the chips using a chemical reaction.
Analogous to blood delivering sugar to hungry
neurones, the approach being explored at IBM is to use a solution of a
chemical like vanadium that can be "charged" before it is pumped into
the computer.
Then, as it passes over the processor components,
the vanadium alters its chemical oxidation state, releasing electrons to
the transistors to power them.
The ultimate goal is to cram a super-computer that
currently occupies half a football pitch into a volume the size of a
sugarcube by 2060.
By: Chris Smith
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