This weird information-theory concept is ready to come out of the lab and into the real world. The first chip to compute reversibly is slated to come out in early 2025, from startup Vaire computing. Their roadmap aims for 4000x energy reduction in ten or fifteen years.
While [Knight’s] demonstrations showed that reversible computation was possible, the wall-plug power usage was not necessarily reduced: Although power was recovered within the circuit itself, it was subsequently lost within the external power supply.
Even this would be a boon to CPUs - you could export all your entropy to fat circuits with passive cooling. We’re trying to shove a kilowatt through a postage stamp of silicon without turning it into a light bulb. Having all that power simply pass through would leave it as cool as a power cable.
Even this would be a boon to CPUs - you could export all your entropy to fat circuits with passive cooling. We’re trying to shove a kilowatt through a postage stamp of silicon without turning it into a light bulb. Having all that power simply pass through would leave it as cool as a power cable.
… or you could shove in ten kilowatts.