Can photonic chips become the next breakthrough in AI computing power?

Recently, I saw a founder promoting the application of optical technology in AI chip design, and this idea is indeed interesting. The performance and power consumption of traditional silicon-based chips are already approaching physical limits, while photonic computing uses the properties of light—fast speed, low energy consumption, and large bandwidth—to process data, which theoretically can break through existing bottlenecks.

For the Web3 and crypto ecosystems, such technological advances are indirect but significant. More efficient chips mean lower computing costs, which will reduce miners' operational expenses and make validation nodes easier to deploy. The performance of DeFi and other on-chain applications will also benefit—faster computation speeds could lead to lower transaction latency and fees.

Of course, there is still a long way to go from laboratory experiments to large-scale commercial use. But this exploration of future computing architectures is essentially paving the way for the entire digital economy (including decentralized finance). I believe this will be an important area to watch in the coming years.