Intel Predicts Ubiquitous, Almost-Zero-Energy Computing By 2020

MrSeb writes "Intel often uses the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) as a platform to discuss its long-term vision for computing as well as more practical business initiatives. This year, the company has discussed the shrinking energy cost of computation as well as a point when it believes the energy required for 'meaningful computing' will approach zero and become ubiquitous by the year 2020. The idea that we could push the energy cost of computing down to nearly immeasurable levels is exciting. It's the type of innovation that's needed to drive products like Google Glass or VR headsets like the Oculus Rift. Unfortunately, Intel's slide neatly sidesteps the greatest problems facing such innovations — the cost of computing already accounts for less than half the total energy expenditure of a smartphone or other handheld device. Yes, meaningful compute might approach zero energy — but touchscreens, displays, radios, speakers, cameras, audio processors, and other parts of the equation are all a long way away from being as advanced as Intel's semiconductor processes."

Comments

Almost?

[nukenerd]

"Almost" ?? As in "I almost saw one camel today"?

Re:Almost?

[bongey]

Schrödinger's camel ?

"meaningful"

[Hazel Bergeron]

My Psion Series 3a computed "meaningfully" on a couple of AA batteries for days.

Re:"meaningful"

[0123456]

Indeed. By the time we can do today's 'meaningful computation' for almost no energy, the definition will have changed to make it as 'meaningful' as what we used to run on a 6502.

nice (an nitpick)

[DMiax]

touchscreens, displays, radios, speakers, cameras, audio processors, and other parts of the equation are all a long way away from being as advanced as Intel's semiconductor processes

It may not be possible at all to lower the power consuption of certain devices below a certain absolute threshold. No matter how advanced, a WiFi device has got to consume at least the power needed to reach other devices. A backlit screen will use at the very least the power it emits in light, etc... It is not simply a matter of technological advances.

That said: amazing prospect. Hope it's not just bold claims no substance. It would really be fantastic.

Re:nice (an nitpick)

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"A backlit screen will use at the very least the power it emits in light, etc... It is not simply a matter of technological advances." Our technologically won't be sufficiently advanced unless it's as energy efficient as nature. How much energy does a bioluminiscent fish consume? I often read about the brain being compared to a light bulb, and not just because of the Edison "invention" connection. Cellphones already consume less energy than a 5W lightbulb but are nowhere near as powerful as the MacDonald's-powered supercomputer inside our heads. Maybe the trick isn't getting as near to zero energy as physically possible but making our information devices sophisticated enough to recharge itself using whatever "free" energy source is available, be that the heat and radiation of the sun, the kinetic energy of a jogger, or the mere act of carrying the cellphone in your pocket while walking on the way to the office.

Re:nice (an nitpick)

[kaiser423]

RF Engineer here. Let's put this in perspective. Your typical cell phone will receive somewhere around -50dBmW maximum. That's typically 4-5 full bars of reception. My phone is sitting next to me right now running -88dBmW, and that's two bars.

So, let's say that you're receiving that -50dBmW signal. -50dBm is -80dBW. Let's convert that straight to Watts now, so 10^(-80/10). That's 1e-8 Watts, or 80 nano-Watts. Good luck charging your phone with that.

That's also why you see RF being used everywhere. The dynamic range is huuuuuuuuge! Your cell phone can transmit +30dBm or more, and you can reliably receiving -80dBm. So, you're able to transmit Watts pretty easily, and receive nano Watts pretty easily. Yea, path loss can be a lot, but you've got a lot of headroom to deal with. That's just in the palm of your hand. Add in big, megawatt amplifiers and huge dishes with large, sensitive electronics and it's no wonder that we can reach out billions of miles. Really mind-boggling stuff if oyu stop to think about it.

Sidestepping?

[Riddler Sensei]

I wouldn't say that Intel is sidestepping those problems because they're not THEIR problems to address.

I'm more optimistic

[SoftwareArtist]

Yes, meaningful compute might approach zero energy — but touchscreens, displays, radios, speakers, cameras, audio processors, and other parts of the equation are all a long way away from being as advanced as Intel's semiconductor processes.

I think the author misunderstood what "ubiquitous" means. It means you can put serious computing power anywhere, including in places that don't have displays, cameras, etc. He's just thinking, "How far can they reduce the power use of my existing smartphone?" The real question is, "What completely new types of devices become practical when computing requires hardly any power at all?"

Also, the situation is better than he suggests. Bright, super high resolution LED or LCD displays take a lot of power, but eInk displays use hardly any power at all. That's why battery life is measured in hours for an iPad and in weeks for a Kindle. LTE radios use a lot of power, but 3G is fine for most applications, and even 2G is more than sufficient in many cases (not for web browsing, but for a device that just needs to exchange limited data with the outside world).

Re:Thermodynamics

[gotfork]

Aren't there some fundamental physical limits on how low your energy usage can be for a given amount of information based on thermodynamics? Is it just the case that they're way, way less than what we're using now?

For any sort of data storage the energy barrier between the two states needs to be large enough that the system doesn't thermodynamically fluctuate between them very often. In practice, this means that the barrier needs to be several times larger than kb*T where kb is the boltzman constant. For computation there's not any hard and fast rule about the energy required, but there's lots of practical ones...

When you say "zero"

[Hatta]

You don't really mean zero. There is a fundamental minimum amount of energy it takes to do a calculation. When Intel says "almost zero energy computing" how far over this limit are they actually talking about? 101% of the Landauer limit? 200%? 1000%?

Jevons paradox says

[doug141]

this may cause an increase in energy used for computations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Think orders of magnitude...

[Esteanil]

Smaller. Smaller. Smaller.

Smart Dust, is what we're talking about - or at least the early iterations.

Weather sensors that flutter in the breeze and scavenge enough energy to remain active and transmitting at most times - and the swarm *always* transmits.
Flow control sensors that oil companies continually release into their pipelines to ensure that if there's a leak they'll know where it is in milliseconds - there's transmitting sensors outside the approved geometric area.
Microscopic "Sniffers" released into the wind, measuring and reporting the amounts of cannabis, cocaine, explosives, dangerous chemicals...
Sensors to detect fire. Sensors to find out if the gas tank in that burning building is leaking at all. Just point into an air current (strong fan or wind) and let them fly from your hands.
*True* microsatellites, measured in single-digit centimetres or even smaller. (I think there's a minimum useful size for a satellite, but it's greatly related to how many of them there are, also... You could have a continual swarm reaching through the low-energy planetary transfer network keeping in contact with quite small satellites in a mesh radio network).

Making Smart Dust *safe* might turn out to be more of a challenge, though... :-)

But "really-really-low-power computing"... Alongside bio/nano-tech convergence it's the beginning of the real microbots:
Invisible cameras, as a perfect 3D image of your head emerges from the small swarm of the tiniest insects you've seen hover around your head.
Robots navigating through your bloodstream, tiny as hell - yet you've somehow ended up with the processing equivalent of your (2012) mobile phone coursing through your veins and working on any health problems you have (mostly by monitoring, at least at first).

I'm sure you guys can come up with more stuff. Please reply if you've got any ideas :-)