General Articles - 2017
The November issue of IEEE Computer Magazine has a special section on new approaches to programming a wide variety of smart devices that may be part of the Internet of Things.
IEEE Spectrum reports on recent research from the University of Cambridge in the UK and Eindhoven University in the Netherlands, on a scheme for a 3D nanomagnetic circuit, for future applications to memory and logic.
IBM Announces Quantum Computing Breakthrough at IEEE Rebooting Computing Event, November 2017
IBM's scientists have successfully built and measured a processor prototype with 50 quantum bits, known as qubits — a major milestone in quantum computing.
XPrize for Artificial Intelligence
IBM is sponsoring a $5M XPrize in AI, which recently selected 147 international teams to compete. There is now an opportunity for new “Wild Card” entrants, through Dec. 1.
Training Program in Extreme-Scale Computing
Argonne National Laboratory, a US Dept. of Energy facility in Illinois, has a major R&D effort in supercomputing. In August 2017, ANL ran a set of tutorial lectures on supercomputing hardware, software, and applications. Videos and slides of some of the lectures are available online.
The October issue of IEEE Spectrum has a Special Report on Blockchains, secure lists of records in distributed multi-user computing environments, which were first developed for Bitcoin electronic currency. Other kinds of blockchains are being developed for security in a variety of databases.
New DARPA Funding Initiative: Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI)
The US Defense Research Projects Agency pledges an additional $300M over 4 years in supporting research into Post-Moore technologies in materials, architectures, and designs for future computing.
Chips Off the Old Block: Computers Are Taking Design Cues From Human Brains
The New York Times has a feature article about industry trends for future computing, with a variety of specialized energy-efficient chips for applications such as artificial intelligence.
Architectures for the Post-Moore Era
This special issue of IEEE Micro Magazine includes 6 articles on a wide range of novel computer architectures for continuing growth in computer speed and performance after the end of Moore’s law transistor scaling. See here for the Guest Editor’s Introduction.
Data Centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, including for cooling the facilities, and the total energy footprint for this sector is rising exponentially. Several techniques for improving energy efficiency are being pursued. For further information read the Guest Editor’s Introduction to the July/August issue of IEEE Internet Computing magazine.
Deep Learning in the Cloud with FPGAs
Project Brainwave is a new Microsoft Deep Learning accelerator platform, based on Intel Stratix 10 FPGA chips. This is designed for artificial intelligence applications in the cloud.
Rather than simply shrinking or replacing transistors, the near-term future will exploit a variety of architectural techniques to continue exponential growth in computer speed and performance. See here for the Guest Editor's Introduction to the August issue of IEEE Computer.
Will the US Continue to Lead Future Computer Technology? (PDF, 222 KB)
Leaders in IEEE Rebooting Computing presented a White Paper to Computing Community Consortium (CCC), recommending a major effort in future computing R&D, in order to maintain US leadership in the field.
For further information on the CCC, see cra.org/ccc.
Dr. Roberto Saracco, Co-chair of IEEE Symbiotic Autonomous Systems Initiative, and Chair of the Industry Advisory Board at IEEE, writes a daily blog on new developments in technology, including the future of computing and electronics. Recent contributions have included graphene transistors, digital manufacturing, and 3D integrated circuits.
IEEE Journal on Exploratory Solid-State Computational Devices and Circuits (JXCDC)
New open-access journal for novel devices and circuits for future computer systems. Papers are broadly read and highly cited, with rapid publication. Read the latest articles and submit your new research!
The Exascale Computing Project
Computing in Science and Engineering has a feature article on development plans of the US Department of Energy for a supercomputer with 1018 operations per second, 100 times more powerful than today’s supercomputers.
Special Report in IEEE Spectrum: Can We Copy the Brain?
Research into the structure and function of the brain is providing inspiration to a new generation of computer systems, which will enable faster and more efficient machine learning in future electronic devices.
Dark Silicon and Low-Power Computing
Recent generations of microprocessors have critical overheating issues, requiring large parts of the circuits to be turned off when not in use, hence “Dark Silicon”. Careful design enables maximizing system performance under these constraints.
Recent Progress in Quantum Computing
Recent developments in superconducting quantum computers by Google, D-Wave Systems, and IBM are discussed.
New White Papers from the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems
Reports by Technology Working Groups will be integrated into new technology roadmap to be issued by the end of 2017.
Contributions include both continued evolution and disruptive alternative technologies.
High Performance Computing Conference
Stanford University, Feb. 7-8, 2017. Videos and slides of most keynote talks are available here.
Micromotes: Millimeter-Scale Computers
University of Michigan researchers have developed ultra-small, ultra-low power (< 1mW) computers for application to mobile Internet of Things. The latest version incorporates neural networks with deep learning.
New Report from European Network on High-Performance Computing
HiPEAC Vision Report advocates reinvention of computing, and predicts “cyber-physical entanglement of the physical and virtual worlds”.
50th Anniversary of Computer Magazine
Special issue reviews the past and includes a set of Outlook articles on the Future of Computing.
Ensuring Long-Term US Leadership in Semiconductors
New White House Report on the Future of the US Semiconductor Industry, from President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Supercomputing Conference SC16 held in Salt Lake City, Utah,
More than 11,000 attendees broke records.
How Google used Neural Nets and Deep Learning to Transform Google Translate. Cover Story in New York Times Magazine.
Arch2030: A vision of computer architecture research over the next 15 years
A report was recently issued, based on the Arch2030 Workshop at ISCA2016. The end of classical scaling requires a wide range of new approaches across the entire computing stack from devices to software.
Let There Be Light: The Year in Silicon Photonics
New research and new products demonstrate high-bandwidth optical transfer of data between processor chips.