Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by kmoser on Sunday October 11, 2026 @04:37PM
(#50047585)
Do you mean as opposed to operating in an analog fashion? My guess is because keeping it digital means it is as close a possible to a drop-in replacement for today's electronic digital computers, including all the firmware, OS, and software that has already been written for them.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by flecomet on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:07PM
(#50047829)
"The first thing to understand about Akhetonics’ optical computer is that it’s not one thing yet." Great, that is such a good explanation. Thanks ChatGPT I guess.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by natas on Sunday October 11, 2026 @02:19PM
(#50046141)
This has been tried by Cray like 15 years ago and the university of Colorado 11 years ago; there were also other initiatives, all failed.
I'm not excluding that now we have more budget/time/AI to make it work (if it can), I'd just say exercise caution reading this (very AI slop) article (and anything that looks too good to be true)
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by oersted on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:20PM
(#50047931)
This is the second sentence:
> Nonlinear phenomena become relevant only when the input light is very intense. Typically, in order to observe nonlinear phenomena, an intensity of the electromagnetic field of light larger than 108 V/m (and thus comparable to the atomic electric field of ~1011 V/m) is required.
I don’t know anything about this field. Can you address this point? How close are we to overcoming this in academia?
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by amelius on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:30PM
(#50048008)
10^8 V/m, yeah that is quite a lot, 100V per micron or 1MV/cm. Even if it works it's going to have reliability issues, especially since the structures are not going to be perfect.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by octoberfranklin on Sunday October 11, 2026 @06:26PM
(#50048569)
I wouldn't infer much from that. Investors are in the business of taking risks and making gambles.
Also "FooCo raises $X zillion round" doesn't mean they got $X zillion deposited into their bank account. There are always several milestones along the way to unlock each tranche. But the press releases never mention that.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by treebeard901 on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @03:22AM
(#50083690)
Photonic computing in general is not snake oil though. It's more real and practical than quantum computing especially for matrix multiplication which is the majority of model training compute usage.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by jurschreuder on Sunday October 11, 2026 @03:41PM
(#50047030)
It's just as if he had the brilliant idea to do photonics as an outcast even though there is already a 6" wafer semi-production level fablab being built for it in The Netherlands. There is even a version of TinyTapeout for Photonics.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by shoo on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:33AM
(#50051421)
When you say pointer heavy, just how heavy is that pointer?
In traditional brainfuck, a single < suffices to move The Pointer one cell to the left.
For a dialect of brainfuck where The Pointer is 3x as heavy as is traditional, you'd have to apply 3x the effort, i.e. <<<, in order to move one cell to the left.
Cursed bogocomputing idea of the day: a variant of brainfuck where The Pointer is physically simulated, with mass & momentum. < & > apply impulses. The Pointer continues to move across The Array with momentum after you apply an impulse.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by nekusar on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:23PM
(#50047954)
References of Akhenaten is making rounds in modern pagan/occult circles as well. The "Law of One" group is really pushing ancient Egyptian 'pyramid power' stuff.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by georgeburdell on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:05PM
(#50047806)
I didn’t read but I’d also like to point out photonics are 1000x larger than leading edge electronics with minimal path to scaling smaller. I don’t see a free lunch
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by userbinator on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:27PM
(#50047984)
Basically the density of early CPUs (1970s), but 1000x faster than those, or current CPUs? Like a 1GHz 6502, or a 1THz 6502? The former is not really better, but the latter might interesting.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by gchamonlive on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:14PM
(#50047872)
There ain't no free lunch, but real progress rarely depend on it. It's usually lunch we weren't eating before, or a different way to eat the same lunch but with much more satisfaction.
Re:Akhetonics Photonic Computing: 1,000x Faster CPUs
by spwa4 on Sunday October 11, 2026 @05:31PM
(#50048018)
If you're looking for the limits of this approach: it's about 1000x faster than electric BUT the individual components have to be way larger (and can't be shrinked down)
... which hopefully means a LOT of fabs will be able to produce these (because a 2nm node makes no sense for this)
It also means this will be incredible for radio chips, interconnects, that sort of thing and will do exactly nothing for the first 20 years for cpu's, never mind gpus.
I'm not excluding that now we have more budget/time/AI to make it work (if it can), I'd just say exercise caution reading this (very AI slop) article (and anything that looks too good to be true)
So also 1000x smaller integration
Sounds incredible, as in: can't believe it.
By the way, isn't Nvidia researching this?
Very real stuff (I have a PhD on this)
> Nonlinear phenomena become relevant only when the input light is very intense. Typically, in order to observe nonlinear phenomena, an intensity of the electromagnetic field of light larger than 108 V/m (and thus comparable to the atomic electric field of ~1011 V/m) is required.
I don’t know anything about this field. Can you address this point? How close are we to overcoming this in academia?
for a laser the intensity in the wavelength / frequency domain is very high, because it is coherent radiation
it just means you can use a (low power) laser to produce nonlinear optical effects.
Also "FooCo raises $X zillion round" doesn't mean they got $X zillion deposited into their bank account. There are always several milestones along the way to unlock each tranche. But the press releases never mention that.
In traditional brainfuck, a single < suffices to move The Pointer one cell to the left.
For a dialect of brainfuck where The Pointer is 3x as heavy as is traditional, you'd have to apply 3x the effort, i.e. <<<, in order to move one cell to the left.
Cursed bogocomputing idea of the day: a variant of brainfuck where The Pointer is physically simulated, with mass & momentum. < & > apply impulses. The Pointer continues to move across The Array with momentum after you apply an impulse.
... which hopefully means a LOT of fabs will be able to produce these (because a 2nm node makes no sense for this)
It also means this will be incredible for radio chips, interconnects, that sort of thing and will do exactly nothing for the first 20 years for cpu's, never mind gpus.
https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/