Researchers at Aalto University have demonstrated single-shot tensor computing at the speed of light, a remarkable step towards next-generation artificial general intelligence hardware powered by optical computation rather than electronics.
Tensor operations are the kind of arithmetic that form the backbone of nearly all modern technologies, especially artificial intelligence, yet they extend beyond the simple math we’re familiar with. Imagine the mathematics behind rotating, slicing, or rearranging a Rubik’s cube along multiple dimensions. While humans and classical computers must perform these operations step by step, light can do them all at once.
Today, every task in AI, from image recognition to natural language processing, relies on tensor operations. However, the explosion of data has pushed conventional digital computing platforms, such as GPUs, to their limits in terms of speed, scalability and energy consumption.
