A new system called Lightning connects the light particles (photons) to computer parts in a new way. It makes the first model of a computer that uses light for quickly solving problems in real-time, especially for tasks like machine learning.
Computers are going through a change. For a long time, we’ve been making electronic chips with more and more tiny switches (transistors). But now, this improvement is slowing down.
We can’t easily fit more switches on small and cheap chips. So, while we want faster and better computers, making them more powerful is getting harder. Especially for handling really complex artificial intelligence tasks. Because of this, engineers are trying to find new ways to make computers better, but they haven’t found a clear solution yet.
