System combines light and electrons to unlock faster, greener computing

"Lightning" system connects photons to the electronic components of computers using a novel abstraction, creating the first photonic computing prototype to serve real-time machine-learning inference requests. Close Computing is at an inflection point. Moore's Law, which predicts that the number of transistors on an electronic chip will double each year, is slowing down due to the physical limits of fitting more transistors on affordable microchips. These increases in computer power are slowing down as the demand grows for high-performance computers that can support increasingly complex artificial intelligence models. This inconvenience has led engineers to explore new methods for expanding the computational capabilities of their machines, but a solution remains unclear. Photonic computing is one potential remedy for the growing computational demands of machine-learning models. Instead of using transistors and wires, these systems utilize photons (microscopic light particles) to perform computation operations in the analog domain.