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Optical processor startup claims to outperform GPUs for AI workloads

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  Optical processor startup claims to outperform GPUs for AI workloads Sky89 <Sky89@sky68.com> - 2018-04-29 00:25 -0400

#4228 — Optical processor startup claims to outperform GPUs for AI workloads

Hello..


Optical processor startup claims to outperform GPUs for AI workloads

Fathom Computing, a startup founded by brothers William and Michael 
Andregg, is aiming to design an optical computer for neural networks. As 
performance increases in traditional transistor-based CPUs have 
relatively stagnated over the last few years, alternative computing 
paradigms such as quantum computers have been gaining traction. While 
optical computers are not a new concept—Coherent Optical Computers was 
published in 1972—they have been relegated to university research 
laboratories for decades.

The design of the Fathom prototype performs mathematical operations by 
encoding numbers into light, according to this profile in Wired. The 
light is then passed through a series of lenses and other optical 
components. The measured result of this process is the calculated result 
of the operation.

The Fathom prototype is not a general-purpose processor, it is designed 
to compute specific types of linear algebra operations. Specifically, 
Fathom is targeting the long short-term memory type of recurrent neural 
networks, as well as the non-recurrent feedforward neural network. This 
mirrors trends in quantum computers, as systems produced by D-Wave are 
similarly targeted toward quantum annealing, rather than general processing.

In a recent blog post, Fathom indicated that they are still two years 
away from launching, but that they expect their platform to 
"significantly outperform state-of-the-art GPUs." The first systems will 
be available as a cloud service for researchers working in artificial 
intelligence.

Read more here:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/optical-processor-startup-claims-to-outperform-gpus-for-ai-workloads/


Thank you,
Amine Moulay Ramdane.

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