MICHAEL LEBBY PICS
BY G-AI, DATACENTRES AND PICs? I was reminded of Alan Turing on my way to the 2023 European Conference on Optical Communications, writes Dr Michael Lebby , Chief Executive Officer, Lightwave Logic Inc. I visited Manchester U.K., and there I saw Alan Turing’s statue and plaque (pictured above). He was born in England in 1912, died in 1954, and has been credited as one of the most famous mathematicians. His work towards theoretical computer science not only helped address highly complex mathematical problems such as halting, but cracked cipher codes during World War II. WOULD ALAN TURING BE EXCITED
O ne wonders what Alan would have thought of the advancement of neural networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence in general. Perhaps, this pioneer of computer science would be at the forefront of artificial intelligence taking it to another level that we have not thought about. This article questions how Generative Artificial Intelligence (G-AI) has an impact on datacentres, and more specifically, the impact with integrated silicon photonics chips, otherwise known as photonics integrated circuits (PICs). The article also considers a new technology platform that is changing the way we look at silicon photonics and PICs in general – electro-optic polymers. These are organic, polymer materials that are enabling very high-speed optics with extremely low power consumption for optical networking in devices called modulators. Before diving into G-AI, we must consider what G-AI is and how
it fits into the internet or optical networks. G-AI is an electronically- based computing solution. It is an approach to increase computational processing, i.e. allowing semiconductor ICs to process data faster and more efficiently. As an industry, we utilize photonics to send information that is processed by MPUs and GPUs from source to destination using fibre optic cables. These fibre optic cables form the architecture for the internet and optical network. At the highest perspective, electronics does the computational processing, and is expected to continue to do so, while photonics helps convey huge amounts of generated information optically through fibre optic networks. Popular photonic components that form optical links or interconnects consist or lasers, modulators, photodetectors etc. These components are now becoming integrated into PICs chips, typically one PIC chip to send or transmit data, and another PIC chip to receive data. PIC chips are the optical engines for pluggable transceiver modules, which
are utilized in hyperscaler based switches, routers, and server equipment that make up a data centre. GROWING IMPACT OF G-AI IN RECENT YEARS While machine learning and neural networks have been a major focus for computational research over the past 3-4 decades, it has only been in the last ~2 years that most of us have become aware of G-AI. We have been educated to accept that G-AI will drive lots of traffic on the internet, mostly because of the users experimenting and figuring out innovative ways to drive new applications. Even without G-AI, we are driving the need for higher data rates and information from the use of dial-up modems in the 1980s and 1990s, to high speed multi-Gbps downloads today, mostly through our appetite to use video-based traffic. Within the last year it became apparent that G-AI and associated increased computational processing is likely to drive higher traffic levels on the internet.
8
www.opticalconnectionsnews.com
| ISSUE 37 | Q2 2024
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator