Low power, high tech: Energy-efficient computing
This test chip, called Ice River, recycles energy that typical computer chips waste as heat. One goal of creating it is to make artificial intelligence more energy efficient.
Vaire Computing
🧊 Ice River: A computer chip that reuses energy
You’ve probably felt your laptop heat up before. All that warmth comes from wasted energy as the computer performs function after function. But an experimental computer chip can reuse the electrical energy running through it. Kathryn Hulick reports for SN on Ice River, a new chip that can recover some of its wasted energy.
🔨 Un-computing with reversible logic
Traditional chips waste energy in a few ways. Their circuitry only processes information in one direction, with every new computation erasing previous ones, generating heat. They also fritter away electricity through rapid voltage changes. Like a hammer slamming down, the coursing electricity smashes 1s into 0s or the other way around, a rapid change that creates speedy computations but also heat.
Ice River modifies these two wasteful phenomena. Rather than process information in only one direction, it employs what’s called reversible logic, allowing it to un-compute and recover original information, which avoids wasting heat on erasures. And instead of smashing 1s into 0s, it uses an approach called adiabatic computing, where voltages fluctuate gradually — it acts like a pendulum instead of a hammer.
Tested in August by its makers at startup Vaire Computing, this chip used around 30 percent less energy compared to a traditional chip performing the same computations, reusing some of its electrical energy.
💻 Unprecedented technology for unprecedented progress
As artificial intelligence continues to ratchet up, more efficient computer chips are on everyone’s wish lists. Data centers already require massive amounts of water and constant cooling in order to keep computers from overheating, and AI demands powerful computer chips that perform on even more electricity. While Ice River is only experimental technology, it may serve as one blueprint for the future of cooler, more energy-efficient computer chips.
⚡ Low power, high tech
Though Ice River seems to be the only product of its kind in public right now, other startups have energy-efficient computing on the brain.
- Vaire Computing: The creator of Ice River is based in London. Their more energy-efficient hardware is geared toward a cooler future of computing. Since their founding in 2021, they’ve raised $10 million.
- Ambiq: Founded in 2010, this Austin, Texas–based startup produces energy-efficient systems on a chip — an integrated circuit that combines myriad functions, like processing and storing memory, into a single chip — destined for “ultra-low power” products such as smartwatches and gaming devices. They’ve raised a total of $387.1 million.
- NeoLogic: This Series A startup based in Israel develops more efficient computer processors. Their technology reportedly saves up to 40 percent of the area a processor usually takes up, and dissipates up to 50 percent less power. Founded in 2021, they most recently raised $10 million this past August, bringing their total funding to $18 million.
These chips are looking pretty cool.
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