Hitting the Physical Limits of Computing

Hmm yes and no.

The first room size computers were running on vacuum tubes which are huge.

The transistor was a milestone. It allowed us to miniaturize the computer.

Now the new chips are hitting 15 molecules in size. We’re talking actual limits of physics here. They need specific H-shaped structures to avoid electrons from hopping from one cable to the next.

There is no next step ahead. We might invent it in a few decades but it’s nowhere to be seen yet.

And no, quantum is not exactly the next phase in consumer computing. It will be the next leap forward if it works, which it doesn’t yet. But it won’t be general purpose like a GPU.

So we kinda hit the physical limits already, these GPU clusters are not going away anytime soon.

In fact due to the chip shortage we’re seeing smartphone companies reverting to older chips and less memory and optimizing the software.