The chip that “thinks” with light, the quantum memory revolution

The boundary between particle physics and artificial intelligence has been broken down by Italian-led international research, published in Physical Review Letters. The studywhich saw the collaboration between Cnr-Nanotec, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Sapienza University of Rome, reveals that photons propagating in optical circuits are not only data carriers, but behave spontaneously like a Hopfield Networkone of the most sophisticated models to describe the associative memory of the human brain. Instead of relying on classic electronic chips, researchers have exploited quantum interference to encode information directly into light particles. “Instead of using traditional electronic chips, we exploited quantum interference, the phenomenon that occurs in photonic chips when light particles overlap and interact with each other to encode and retrieve information“, explains Marco Leonetti, coordinator and corresponding author of the study, first researcher of the Cnr-Nanotec and affiliated to the Center for Life Nano- and Neuro-Science of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). “In this system, photons are not simple data carriers, but themselves become the ‘neurons’ of an associative memory“.