https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-ibm-unveils-world-nanometer-chip.html The tech wars have been heating up a great deal, with Nvidia kicking everyone's ass and now preparing to use their own ARM processors and graphics technology to compete in the server market, Apple introducing their own ARM chips, the underdog AMD kicking everyone's ass except Nvidia, and Intel floundering like a beached whale. What's been going on in the background is just as interesting, with over a trillion dollars invested in AI research last year alone, and full scale quantum computer already being possible, but nobody will admit to having one yet. A computer like that could crack every database on the planet, and the only thing slowing them down is the speed of telecommunications and conventional computers. Anywho, Intel has been working on stacking memory chips right on top of everything, and defying the laws of thermodynamics, but IBM's new chip is the size of a fingernail and has 50 billion transistors. A high end laptop today might contain 12 billion total, and if Intel can stack memory on top, they could easily put a modern supercomputer on a single chip. Already its possible to add a little pcie card to your home computer, that turns it into a supercomputer capable of crunching outrageous numbers, and these new chips should easily be capable of running a Star Trek holodeck. However, to put all this in perspective, these little chips merely represent the cheap crap they are preparing to sell to the public. After well over a decade of progress with computers slowing to a steady crawl, the shit is about to hit the fan.
I hear there is a worldwide shortage of electronic components, which is affecting availability of not only computers but also cars, appliances, etc. So the cheap crap is not going to be so cheap for awhile, and advancements won't mean so much to most people. I was going to build a new desktop system, but given the shortages and excessive prices of components, I'm OK for now. My hope is the sophistication of quantum computing will improve the efficiency with which quantum using (or accessing?) components will be made and distributed as well as result in reasonable prices.
The industry is so corrupt you would need a crystal ball to guess what's happening next. However, what requires no guessing is that the US government and military have become heavily dependent upon chips made in foreign countries, and all of these chips have turned out to contain spyware and serious fucking flaws, Duh! Intel has been spending all their money investing in new fabs, including one in the US, but there's no fucking way they can back peddle fast enough to escape disaster. The whole world is rapidly going down the toilet, and the semi-conducting industry feels right at home, while military intelligence can now be found on isle 9 at your friendly neighborhood Walmart.
