Chinese scientists have unveiled an optical computing chip that outperformed Nvidia’s leading AI hardware by over a hundredfold in speed and energy efficiency, reports the South China Morning Post. The chip performs particularly well for generative tasks such as video production and image synthesis.
The LightGen chip was developed by a team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tsinghua University, harnessing the speed of light to execute complex artificial intelligence workloads. The research, led by Professor Chen Yitong from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was published in the journal Science on Friday.
With more than 2 million photonic neurons integrated into a compact chip, LightGen can generate high-resolution images, including 3D scenes, and create videos.