Saturday, January 18, 2025

Reversible Computing for AI efficiency

 Reversible Computing Escapes the Lab - IEEE Spectrum

"Intuitively, information may seem like an ephemeral, abstract concept. But in 1961, Rolf Landauer at IBM discovered a surprising fact: Erasing a bit of information in a computer necessarily costs energy, which is lost as heat. It occurred to Landauer that if you were to do computation without erasing any information, or “reversibly,” you could, at least theoretically, compute without using any energy at all."

A traditional exclusive-OR (XOR) gate is not reversible—you cannot recover the inputs just by knowing the output. Adding an extra output, just a copy of one of the inputs, makes it reversible. Then, the two outputs can be used to “decompute” the XOR gate and recover the inputs, and with it, the energy used in computation.


New Computer Breakthrough is Defying the Laws of Physics - YouTube


Rolf Landauer - Wikipedia

ideas: macro-engineering (new sea in desert)

interesting, strange idea

Qattara Depression Project - Wikipedia

"The Qattara Depression Project or Qattara Project is a macro-engineering project concept in Egypt. Rivalling the Aswan High Dam in scope, the intention is to develop the hydroelectric potential of the Qattara Depression by creating an artificial lake.[1]

The Qattara depression is a region that lies 60 m (200 ft) below sea level on average and is currently a vast, uninhabited desert. Water could be let into the area by connecting it to the Mediterranean Sea with tunnels and/or canals. The inflowing water would then evaporate quickly because of the desert climate. A controlled balance of inflow and evaporation would produce a continuous flow to generate hydroelectricity."