Rome Lab awards SUNY Poly researchers $900K to study quantum technologies for next-generation computer systems

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome (Rome Lab) has awarded two researchers at SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) a $900,000 grant.

Their research will focus on brain-inspired (neuromorphic) computing systems comprised of quantum devices operating at cryogenic (below -450 °F) temperatures.

Satyavolu Papa Rao, associate VP for research and adjunct professor of nanoscience, and Nathaniel Cady, professor of nanobioscience, will use the funding.

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They’ll conduct research and development of such neuromorphic computing systems that mimic the functioning elements of a human brain. Rao and Cady will conduct their research in SUNY Poly’s 300mm wafer-fabrication facility using the same tool platforms on which advanced computer chips are built, the school said.

This research can accelerate the development of “large scale, fab-friendly superconducting optoelectronic systems (harnessing both superconductivity and light) that could compute 30,000 times faster than the human brain, but at the same level of energy efficiency.”

About the research

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The research team led by Papa Rao will work to address current “bottlenecks” in all-electronic implementations of neuromorphic computing by research and development of the “critical elements” of superconducting optoelectronics at the 300mm scale.

The brain-inspired infrastructure will use “ultra-fast, extremely energy efficient” Josephson junctions, which consist of two superconducting materials and a thin non-superconducting material in between. The Josephson junctions will need to be combined with silicon-based infrared photon (light) emitters, which generate light pulses that allow a given neuron to communicate with many downstream neurons.

This arrangement mimics how the human brain works by sending and receiving ultra-short electrical pulses that it uses to store and process information simultaneously, per the release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Eric Reinhardt

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