honey, this line of research for the design of more powerful and ecological computers

Will there one day be honey in our computers? Biodegradable honey could help fight electronic pollution by being used in the manufacture of neuromorphic computer chips. These computers, copying the functioning of the brain, would be faster and less energy-consuming.

Honey is the subject of research by scientists at Washington State University Vancouver, in the western United States, to develop a special chip for neuromorphic computers. The goal is to develop computer components with all kinds of advantages, including being more environmentally friendly than traditional components. Zoe Templin, one of the university’s researchers, tells our colleagues at Oregon Public Television that she feels lucky to have grown up in the northwest of the United States, where ecological awareness is perhaps a little more present than elsewhere in the country.

Chemical properties that make it possible to imitate synapses

According to the United Nations, humanity produces 50 million tonnes of electronic waste each year, of which only 20% is recycled. Hence this research around honey, to make certain parts of electronic chips more biodegradable. Not only does it only need a little water to wash it away, it doesn’t rot, it’s stable, but it turns out that it has chemical properties that allow it to potentially be transformed into a computer component. A component in fact less toxic than silicon, for example. As a reminder, silicon is called “silicon” in English, hence Silicon Valley.

Honey could be used to make a certain type of component, “memristors”, contraction of “memory” and “resistance”, two essential provisions in computer science. The concept has existed for decades but the first “memristors” were only manufactured in 2008. The idea is to imitate the human brain, often presented as an extraordinary computer. Researchers at Washington State University solidify honey, then place it between two metal electrodes to somehow copy a synapse, that is to say the point of contact between two neurons. It is through synapses that we learn and remember what we learn.

Faster, more economical chips

For the moment, the university has created only one “memristor” the thickness of a hair. Still very far from the final goal, that is to say billions of “memristors” one thousandth the thickness of a hair. All these assembled “memristors” will theoretically make it possible to manufacture a neuromorphic computer. A computer, which takes our brain as a model, would be both faster and more energy efficient than current computers.

Today’s computers process information and store it. One component takes care of processing it and another of storing it. For information to flow between these two components, it takes energy and time. Lots of energy even. THE New York Times recently explained that artificial intelligence servers could, within four years, consume as much energy as a country like Argentina. The “memristor” processes the information and stores it in the same place, saving time and energy. If these “memristors”, more efficient than current components, are also made with honey, you end up with a more efficient, less energy-consuming and more ecological computer.