Physics for Future Computing

I will talk about ways that new approaches to computing can drastically reduce the amount of energy consumed by our digital lifestyles. Whilst ubiquitous digital technologies feel ‘clean’ to use, huge amounts of electricity are required to run the vast data centres that cloud services rely on, each consuming 100 megawatts or more. Ways to improve computers' energy efficiency include: using new materials to represent information in different ways, building densely connected 3D computers, copying brain architectures to build neuromorphic computers and realising the promise of quantum computing.

In this talk, we have a critical look at computers and discuss how clever they really are and what limits their performance. We will see that many of their limitations are due not only to energy constraints or the size of transistors. They are also due to the logic that our current computing machines are based on. It is argued that moving into the quantum realm will equip computers with a different type of logic, which might help us to solve computationally hard problems more efficiently. Finally, we look at recent initiatives to bring quantum computers to life.