Recently, scientists from McGill University have discovered that ATP, “a chemical which provides energy to cells inside the human body, could also power an energy efficient biological supercomputer,” according to Valuewalk.com.
Valuewalk said the researchers replaced electrons with Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) “when building chips, in order to reduce costs and cool the system.”
“The circuit on the chip does not feature electrons zipping around, but rather “shoe strings” of proteins that are powered by ATP,” reported Valuewalk, “As a result the system does not overheat and uses minimal energy.”
According to the study, the scientists “implemented the proposed computational approach with biological agents that satisfy the following requirements: The agents (proteins) are available in large numbers at negligible cost; are self-propelled and thus do not require a global, external driving force; operate independently of each other to ensure parallel exploration; have small dimensions to enable use in high-density networks with high computing power per unit area; move rapidly to maximize computational speed; and move in a predominantly forward direction (to ensure low error rates).”
The next step isn’t a supercomputer, however. The team wants to create a “hybrid device” by combining the system with a conventional computer to test first, according to Valuewalk.
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