"We're taking a new approach to building chips for AI because transistors can't get any smaller."
I really don't know what they gain by convoluting the point and it's pretty hard to follow what the CEO is talking about half the time.
Quantum computing has been exploring an entirely new model of computation for which it's hard to even articulate the problems it can solve. Whereas using analog computers in place of digital is already well defined.
However, if you're thinking about research grants, no. That's the point of research grants.
> Extropic is also building semiconductor devices that operate at room temperature to extend our reach to a larger market. These devices trade the Josephson junction for the transistor. Doing so sacrifices some energy efficiency compared to superconducting devices. In exchange, it allows one to build them using standard manufacturing processes and supply chains, unlocking massive scale.
So, their mass-market device is going to be based on transistors.
The actual article read like a weird mesh of techno-babble and startup-evangelism to me. I can't judge if what they are suggesting is vaporware or hyperbole. This is one of those cases where they are either way ahead of my own thinking or they are trying to bamboozle me with jargon.
I personally find it hard to categorize a lot of AI hype into "worth actually looking into" vs. "total waste of time". The best I can do in this case is suspend my judgement and if they come up again with something more substantive than a rambling post then I can always readjust.
In most applications superconductivity does not actually yield better energy efficiency at system level, since it turns out cooling stuff to negative several hundred degrees is quite energy demanding.
Am I the only one who thought the article was clear, lucid, and reasonably concise?
The company's success or failure will depend on execution, but the value proposition is quite sound. Maybe I've just spent too much time in the intersection between information theory, thermodynamics, and signal processing...
"Don't splurge on high SNR ('digital') hardware just to re-introduce noise later." == "Don't dig a hole and fill it in again. You waste energy twice!"
It even makes me think that they don't understand what they're talking about which is why they're using complicated terminology to mask it but I'm hopeful I'm wrong and this is an engineering innovation that benefits everyone.
There may or may not be something there, but the article is mostly buzzword-slinging. They wrote "This will allow us to put an Extropic accelerator in every home, enabling everyone to partake in the thermodynamic AI acceleration." Huh?
If they said something like "We are trying to cut the cost of stable diffusion by a factor of 100", that would sort of make sense. But then people would want to see a demo.