Chinese Scientists Develop Optical AI Chip 100× Faster Than Nvidia’s Leading Hardware
A Chinese research team has unveiled a breakthrough optical AI chip that delivers performance up to 100 times faster and more energy-efficient than Nvidia’s current market-leading processors, particularly for generative AI tasks.
LightGen Optical Chip Sets New AI Performance Benchmark
The chip, named LightGen, was developed by scientists from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tsinghua University. Unlike traditional electronic processors, LightGen uses photonic computing, harnessing the speed of light to process artificial intelligence workloads.
According to the researchers, the optical chip dramatically outperforms conventional AI hardware in both speed and energy efficiency, especially for generative applications such as image synthesis, 3D scene generation, and video creation.
Over 2 Million Photonic Neurons on a Single Chip
LightGen integrates more than 2 million photonic neurons into a compact chip design. This allows it to generate high-resolution images and produce complex video outputs, showcasing its potential for next-generation AI systems.
The research was led by Professor Chen Yitong of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and was published on Friday in the prestigious scientific journal Science.
A New Path Toward Sustainable AI Computing
Professor Chen said the LightGen architecture can be further scaled up, offering a new approach to connecting advanced chip designs with real-world AI applications.
“It provides a new way to bridge new chip architectures to daily, complex AI tasks without performance loss, while achieving speed and efficiency orders of magnitude higher,” Chen said, highlighting its potential role in sustainable AI development.
As generative AI continues to advance rapidly, demand for massive computing power and energy efficiency is increasing. Optical AI chips like LightGen could play a key role in addressing these challenges.
Search us on Google it will help us
0 Comments