Analog computing can solve complex equations and use far less energy

OpAmp did maths way before microprocessor did.

And there's even whole analog computers, some even fully mechanical.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38504787

I knew my love for steampunk would be useful someday

Related: New hardware offers faster computation for artificial intelligence, with much less energy

https://news.mit.edu/2022/analog-deep-learning-ai-computing-...

Especially interesting for neuromorphic computing hardware. Has already been shown by IBM's TrueNorth and NorthPole chips. Tough in my opinion, a major bottleneck, is the lack of bandwidth on these chips. They can be highly parallel for their circuits, though for example image data, only 28x28 pixels, would already need 784 DACs coming from a digital source.