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    Programmable photonic chip uses light to accelerate AI training and cut energy use

    April 16, 2025, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Penn engineers first to train AI at lightspeed
    Postdoctoral fellow Tianwei Wu (left) and Professor Liang Feng (right) in the lab, demonstrating some of the apparatus used to develop the new, light-powered chip. Credit: Sylvia Zhang.

    Penn Engineers have developed the first programmable chip that can train nonlinear neural networks using light—a breakthrough that could dramatically speed up AI training, reduce energy use and even pave the way for fully light-powered computers.

    While today’s AI chips are electronic and rely on electricity to perform calculations, the new chip is photonic, meaning it uses beams of light instead. Described in Nature Photonics, the chip reshapes how light behaves to carry out the nonlinear mathematics at the heart of modern AI.

    “Nonlinear functions are critical for training deep neural networks,”...

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