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Re:Researchers identify new type of superconductor by formerly_proven on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @02:26PM (#24570245)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_computing

Apparently. Whole article sounds like science-fiction. 500x efficiency increase while scaling operating frequencies 250x.

Re:Researchers identify new type of superconductor by jcranmer on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @03:59PM (#24571253)
Drilling down into the sources suggests that the top-level claims are a bit of a reach:

> Specifically, while superconducting technology eliminates the cost of moving bits within the superconducting domain, the cost of transferring data from the outside into the superconducting domain does dissipate energy at 4 K. Consequently, superconducting is expected to perform poorly on, for example, big data applications where the bulk of data is streamed from the outside into the processor. What is more, the energy cost of logic in superconducting circuits is expected to be similar to that of CMOS.

Re:Researchers identify new type of superconductor by Whirl on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @05:43PM (#24572432)
This is true for now. The IARPA SuperCables program exists to tackle this specific problem. Probably the solution will require converting microwave pulses into optical frequencies to get the signals out of the cold spaces with fiber-optic infrastructure.

If you read the broad agency announcement, they even have explicit energy dissipation targets (per bit). I think it’s something like attoJoules or femtoJoules?

https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/supercable...

Re:Researchers identify new type of superconductor by rsfern on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @05:59PM (#24572599)
You seem to be quoting [0].

This isn't really my area of expertise, but the 4K referenced here seems to be the operating temperature.

I imagine the thermodynamics of moving data around changes if you have room-temperature superconducting materials and aren't constrained to cryogenic computing, but I am not really sure what the impact would be on mitigating (or exacerbating) this kind of data transfer cost.

[0]: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.10...