As IEEE Spectrum editors, we delight ourselves on recognizing promising applied sciences and following them from the analysis section by means of improvement and finally deployment. In each January subject, we concentrate on the applied sciences that are actually poised to attain important milestones within the new yr.
This subject was curated by Senior Editor Samuel Okay. Moore, our in-house skilled on semiconductors. So it’s no shock that he included a narrative on Intel’s plan to roll out two momentous chip applied sciences within the subsequent few months.
For “Intel Hopes to Leapfrog Its Opponents,” Moore directed our editorial intern, Gwendolyn Rak, to report on the chance the chip big is taking by introducing two applied sciences without delay. We started monitoring the primary expertise, nanosheet transistors, in 2017. By the point we gave all the main points in a 2019 function article, it was clear that this system was destined to be the successor to the FinFET. Moore first noticed the second expertise, back-side energy supply, on the IEEE Worldwide Electron Gadgets Assembly in 2019. Lower than two years later, Intel publicly dedicated to incorporating the tech in 2024.
Talking of dedication, the U.S. navy’s Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company has performed an infinite half in bankrolling a few of the elementary advances that seem in these pages. Lots of our readers will probably be acquainted with the robots that Senior Editor Evan Ackerman lined throughout DARPA’s humanoid problem nearly 10 years in the past. These robots have been primarily analysis initiatives, however as Ackerman studies in “12 months of the Humanoid,” a couple of corporations will begin up pilot initiatives in 2024 to see if this era of humanoids is able to roll up its metaphorical sleeves and get all the way down to enterprise.
Extra not too long ago, absolutely homomorphic encryption (FHE) has burst onto the scene. Moore, who’s been overlaying the Cambrian explosion in chip architectures for AI and different different computing modalities because the mid-teens, notes that, just like the robotics problem, DARPA was the preliminary driver.
“You’d count on the three corporations DARPA funded to provide you with a chip, although there was no assure they’d commercialize it,” says Moore, who wrote “Chips to Compute With Encrypted Knowledge Are Coming.” “However what you wouldn’t count on is three extra startups, independently of DARPA, to return out with their very own FHE chips on the identical time.”
Senior Editor Tekla S. Perry’s story about phosphorescent OLEDs, “A Behind-the-Screens Change for OLED,” is definitely a deep lower for us. One of many first function articles Moore edited at Spectrum manner again in 2000 was Stephen Forrest’s article on natural electronics. His lab developed the primary phosphorescent OLED supplies, that are vastly extra environment friendly than the fluorescent ones. Forrest’s analysis led to the founding of Common Show Corp., which, after greater than twenty years, is lastly about to commercialize the final of its trio of phosphorescent colours—blue.
Then there’s our cowl story about deepfakes and their potential impression on dozens of nationwide elections later this yr. We’ve been monitoring the rise of deepfakes since mid-2018, after we ran a narrative about AI researchers betting on whether or not or not a deepfake video about a politician would obtain greater than 2 million views throughout the U.S. midterm elections that yr. As Senior Editor Eliza Strickland studies in “This Election 12 months, Search for Content material Credentials,” a number of corporations and trade teams are working onerous to make sure that deepfakes don’t take down democracy.
Greatest needs for a wholesome and affluent new yr, and luxuriate in this yr’s expertise forecast. It’s been years within the making.
This text seems within the January 2024 print subject.
This publish was corrected on 2 January. Stephen Forrest was concerned within the creation of Common Show, however he was not a cofounder.
