Are Light-Powered AI Chips the Future? Photonics Industry Faces Challenges

The photonics industry, which uses light to send signals for AI chips, may not be the panacea it was once believed to be. While light produces less heat than electricity and travels faster, start-ups such as Lightmatter and Luminous Computing still have a long way to go before reaching the mainstream. Microsoft's AI models, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, already face a shortage of server hardware, leaving ChatGPT's training from scratch costing over $4 million. To improve training performance, photonic chips have been suggested as a solution, which aim to use light instead of electricity. However, while investors and analysts push for photonic chips for AI, it may not be a perfect solution.