New computer chip material inspired by the human brain could slash AI energy use
New computer chip material inspired by the human brain could slash AI energy use
Shooting a rocket directly into the sun would waste as much energy as current AI data centers, because it would have to shed all the earth’s momentum.
Better to just use a volcano.
could dramatically cut the energy consumed by artificial intelligence hardware
Decreasing the cost of using a resource almost always results in more use of that resource.
Laboratory tests showed the devices could reliably endure tens of thousands of switching cycles
That’s not very many when GPUs perform trillions of operations per second.
This seems like such a glaringly-obvious solution to lower inference cost that surely there must be some fundamental flaw in it… otherwise all of the big AI firms would be doing it, right?
Right…?
Yeah. I can believe that forces within the human brain could help AI reduce it’s power consumption.
Step 1) Turn off AI.
Step 2) There is no step 2.
At least, that’s what my brain thought.
Good for them on getting a hype article
No thanks. There’s more than enough bullshit in “AI”.
AI boosters are no longer allowed to explain what’s good about AI using the future tense. You can no longer say “it will,” “could,” “might,” “likely,” “possible,” “estimated,” “promise,” or any other term that reviews today’s capabilities in the language of the future.

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Abstract
The escalating energy consumption of existing artificial intelligence hardware has become a serious global issue that demands immediate action. Neuromorphic computing offers promises to drastically reduce this footprint. Here, we introduce multicomponent p-type Hf(Sr,Ti)O2 thin films for energy-efficient, resistive switching–based neuromorphic devices. We demonstrate interfacial memristors with ultralow switching currents (≤~10−8 A), exceptional cycle-to-cycle and device-to-device uniformities, and retention >105 s. They reveal hundreds of ultralow conductance levels with a modulation range of >50 (without reaching any saturation) and reproducibly satisfy unsupervised learning rules. This performance originates from incorporating a self-assembled p-n heterointerface between p-type Hf(Sr,Ti)O2 and n-type TiOxNy, resulting in a fully depleted space-charge layer asymmetrically extended into Hf(Sr,Ti)O2, a large built-in potential, and extremely low saturation current density under reverse bias. Ultralow conductance modulation is controlled by tuning p-n heterointerface’s energy-barrier height through electro-ionic charge migration. This materials-engineering strategy addresses energy consumption and variability in existing memristors, opening a pathway toward energy-efficient neuromorphic computing systems.