As IEEE Spectrum editors, we delight ourselves on recognizing promising applied sciences and following them from the analysis section via growth and finally deployment. In each January subject, we give attention to the applied sciences that are actually poised to realize important milestones within the new yr.
This subject was curated by Senior Editor Samuel Okay. Moore, our in-house professional 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 Rivals,” Moore directed our editorial intern, Gwendolyn Rak, to report on the danger the chip large is taking by introducing two applied sciences directly. We started monitoring the primary know-how, nanosheet transistors, in 2017. By the point we gave all the main points in a 2019 characteristic article, it was clear that this gadget was destined to be the successor to the FinFET. Moore first noticed the second know-how, 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 number of the elementary advances that seem in these pages. Lots of our readers will likely be accustomed to the robots that Senior Editor Evan Ackerman coated throughout DARPA’s humanoid problem nearly 10 years in the past. These robots have been basically analysis tasks, however as Ackerman studies in “Yr of the Humanoid,” a couple of firms will begin up pilot tasks in 2024 to see if this technology of humanoids is able to roll up its metaphorical sleeves and get right down to enterprise.
Extra just lately, totally homomorphic encryption (FHE) has burst onto the scene. Moore, who’s been masking the Cambrian explosion in chip architectures for AI and different various computing modalities for the reason that mid-teens, notes that, just like the robotics problem, DARPA was the preliminary driver.
“You’d count on the three firms 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 Information Are Coming.” “However what you wouldn’t count on is three extra startups, independently of DARPA, to come back 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 minimize for us. One of many first characteristic articles Moore edited at Spectrum approach again in 2000 was Stephen Forrest’s article on natural electronics. His lab developed the primary phosphorescent OLED supplies, that are massively extra environment friendly than the fluorescent ones. Forrest was a founding father of Common Show Corp., which has now, after greater than twenty years, lastly commercialized the final of its trio of phosphorescent colours—blue.
Then there’s our cowl story about deepfakes and their potential influence 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 Yr, Search for Content material Credentials,” a number of firms and business teams are working laborious 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 know-how forecast. It’s been years within the making.
This text seems within the January 2024 print subject.