Optical computing startup Lightelligence has developed a new GPU that outstrips the very best GPUs on the planet -- at least in the most challenging mathematical problems -- with the introduction of the Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine (PACE).
Lightelligence's new Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine (PACE) thrashes NVIDIA's third-fastest Turing-based GPU in the GeForce RTX 3080 by nearly 100x in the NP-complete class of problems. The new PACE accelerator under the Ising model -- an example of a thermodynamic system that's used for understanding phase transitions -- with record-breaking results.
Popular Now: Even the RTX 5090 can't hit 60FPS in Control Resonant without upscalingThe new PACE accelerator when compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 is around 100x faster, with Lightelligence using 12,000 optical devices integrated onto a circuit, clocked at 1GHz. Up against the purpose-built Toshiba's simulated bifurcation machine based on FPGAs, Lightelligence's new PACE accelerator still beats that system by 25x -- just as impressive.
Lightelligence's new Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine (PACE) system uses standard silicon photonics integration of Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) for computing and MEMS to change the waveguide shape in the MZI.
TechPowerUp makes a good point here, in that Lightelligence's new PACE accelerator shows the world that these super-advanced chips aren't all just about AI, HPC, ray tracing, and gaming. Massively complicated mathematical problems being super-sped up by 25-100x shouldn't be ignored, at all.
These types of accelerators can be used in material science, thermodynamics, bioinformatics, cryptography, circuit design, power grid optimization, and much more.
