The electronics in the computing area are reaching their limits. The physical barriers of silicon-based electronics constrain the improvements. The computing world needs a breakthrough in which photonics might be the solution. Several companies, including Intel, are researching the new technology.
First in supercomputers
The supercomputer named Jean Zay, located in France, has become the first supercomputer that contains a photonic coprocessor. The optical processing unit (OPU) company LightOn, developed a unit in U2 form factor, using their Aurora 2 OPUs. The U2 form factor enabled easy integration with the supercomputer, Jean Zay.
Photonics will break the physical barriers of moving electrons on copper and gold wires
The Jean Zay supercomputer, which specializes in AI research, has become one of the top 500 supercomputers globally. The LightOn appliance works in tandem with standard silicon CPU and Nvidia AI GPUs and uses photonics to speed up randomized algorithms at a very large scale. LightOn states that photonics will reduce overall computing time and power consumption.
The program has been possible with the contributions of GENCI and IDRIS. The program has a limited time under a pilot program for a few months. In this time scope, machine learning foundations, differential privacy, satellite imaging analysis, and natural language processing task will be done on Jean Lay supercomputer with LightOn photonics enhancements.