At Intel Labs Day 2020, Intel spotlighted research initiatives across multiple domains where its researchers are striving for orders of magnitude advancements to shape the next decade of computing. Themed “In Pursuit of 1000X: Disruptive Research for the Next Decade in Computing,” the event featured several emerging areas including integrated photonics, neuromorphic computing, quantum computing, confidential computing, and machine programming. Together, these domains represent pioneering efforts to address critical challenges in the future of computing, and Intel’s leadership role in pursuing breakthroughs to address them. Rich Uhlig, Intel senior fellow, vice president, and director of Intel Labs was joined by several domain experts across the research organization to share perspectives on the industry and societal impact of these technologies.
You can listen to the keynote and presentation replays for the full day here.
Intel Advances Progress in Integrated Photonics for Data Centers: At Intel Labs Day, Intel highlighted industry-leading technological advances toward the realization of the company’s long-standing vision of integrating photonics with low-cost, high-volume silicon. The advancements represent critical progress in the field of optical interconnects, which address growing challenges around the performance scaling of electrical input/output (I/O) as compute-hungry data workloads increasingly overwhelm network traffic in data centers. Intel demonstrated advances in key technology building blocks, including miniaturization, paving the way for tighter integration of optical and silicon technologies.
Update on Intel’s Neuromorphic Ecosystem Growth and Progress: Intel shared an update on progress within the Intel Neuromorphic Research Community (INRC). The group has grown rapidly since its inception in 2018 and now includes more than 100 members, with Intel announcing today the addition of Lenovo, Logitech, Mercedes-Benz and Prophesee to explore the value of neuromorphic computing for business use cases. Additionally, Intel summarized a growing body of research results from INRC members that used the company’s neuromorphic research test chip, Loihi.
Intel Machine Programming Tool Detects Bugs in Code: Intel unveiled ControlFlag – a machine programming research system that can autonomously detect errors in code. Even in its infancy, this novel, self-supervised system shows promise as a powerful productivity tool to assist software developers with the labor-intensive task of debugging. In preliminary tests, ControlFlag trained and learned novel defects on over 1 billion unlabeled lines of production-quality code.
Intel Debuts 2nd-Gen Horse Ridge Cryogenic Quantum Control Chip: Intel unveiled Horse Ridge II, its second-generation cryogenic control chip, marking another milestone in the company’s progress toward overcoming scalability, one of quantum computing’s biggest hurdles. Building on innovations in the first-generation Horse Ridge controller introduced in 2019, Horse Ridge II supports enhanced capabilities and higher levels of integration for elegant control of the quantum system. New features include the ability to manipulate and read qubit states and control the potential of several gates required to entangle multiple qubits.