In a digital world of the future, everyday life and the working world around us will be permanently supported by artificial intelligence. Data from countless sensors and actuators are read out by the smallest computers, processed, merged via a network of data links into larger nodes with more computing power, interpreted, fed back. They change, control, support, move our lives. In between sit huge data centers that take on the big tasks, manage and direct data, train artificial brains and solve complex scientific problems.
But this vision of a connected world currently comes at a high price. If global energy consumption for computing and communications increases at the same rate as it has been, it will take up the entire, global capacity for energy production as early as 2040. Energy consumption has been falling for a long time - because chip structures have become smaller and smaller. But this is where developments are now reaching their physical limits.
In order to implement our visions for the future - from autonomous driving to computer-aided drug development to intelligent control of countless renewable energy sources - fundamentally new computing concepts must therefore be found.