Microsoft Research Institute in Cambridge, UK, releases a new analog optical computer, leading chang

On September 3, the scientific research team at the Microsoft Research Institute in Cambridge in the United Kingdom announced a far-reaching research result in the top academic journal Nature: they successfully created a new analog optical computer (AOC) based on Micro LED light sources, optical lenses and smartphone camera sensors. This innovation is expected to trigger breakthroughs in many key areas such as financial settlement, medical imaging, and artificial intelligence, injecting new vitality into the development of the industry.

Unlike traditional digital computers that rely on binary operations, AOC takes a different approach and uses optical physical processes to complete computing tasks. In traditional electronic computing, signal transmission and processing often face bottleneck problems such as electron migration and heat dissipation. AOC cleverly avoids these problems through the transmission and modulation of optical signals. Research data shows that when processing specific tasks, AOC shows amazing performance advantages. Its speed and energy efficiency can be improved 100 times compared with traditional systems. It can operate stably in a room temperature environment with extremely low power consumption, which greatly reduces operating costs and equipment complexity.

At present, AOC has begun to show its edge in the financial and medical fields, showing huge application potential. In a cooperation project jointly carried out with Barclays Bank, AOC successfully simulated the securities settlement optimization problem involving 1800 participants and up to 28,000 transactions, and found solutions accurately and efficiently. Its computing speed and accuracy far exceed traditional computing methods provide financial institutions with powerful assistance to cope with complex transaction scenarios. In the medical field, MRI images are reconstructed with the help of digital twin models built by AOC, and the effect is equally significant. From a theoretical perspective, the MRI scan time that originally took 30 minutes can be greatly reduced to 5 minutes using AOC technology. This will undoubtedly greatly improve the efficiency of the utilization of medical resources and allow more patients to obtain accurate imaging diagnosis in a timely manner.

The R & D team made it clear that the AOC is not intended to replace general purpose computers, but a dedicated computing architecture designed for optimization issues and specific AI tasks. The core principle is to use the intensity changes produced when photons pass through the sensor to realize addition and multiplication in mathematical operations. At present, the parameters of the AOC model have expanded from the initial 64 to 256. With the continuous iteration of technology, by integrating more microled components in the future, the parameter scale is expected to increase exponentially, reaching one million or even one billion levels. This will not only further support more complex computing tasks, but will also promote the development of equipment in the direction of miniaturization, making it easier to integrate into various terminal equipment.

In the AI inference task segment, AOC has been able to stably run simple machine learning models, especially in computationally intensive application scenarios such as state tracking, showing excellent energy efficiency advantages. Professional estimates suggest that it is approximately 100 times more energy efficient than current GPUs, meaning that AOC can do the same AI reasoning tasks with lower energy consumption, significantly reducing hardware costs and energy consumption. Based on this technological advantage, Microsoft has developed a long-term development plan, planning to launch a new generation of AOC products every two years, continuously improving its scale and performance.

Judging from the overall development trend, the research team firmly believes that AOC will play a pivotal role in core areas such as financial transaction optimization, accelerated medical image processing, and AI computing. It is worth noting that Microsoft has long been far-reaching in exploring the application of MicroLED technology. Previously, Microsoft successfully developed the optical interconnection project MOSAIC based on Micro LEDs. The project uses hundreds of low-speed parallel MicroLED channels to build a wide and slow (WaS) communication architecture with high energy efficiency, long-distance transmission, high reliability and good scalability.) communication architecture brings new ideas to the field of data communications. Nowadays, the birth of AOC has pushed the application of MicroLED technology in the computing field to new heights. With the deep integration and coordinated development of related technologies in the future, it is expected to spawn innovative applications in more industries and reshape the industrial landscape.