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Rochester researchers develop novel Ising machines with federal research and development funding support from DARPA.

糖心传媒淲hy the Russian Military Is Bogged Down by Logistics.糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淎llies Fail to Agree on Sending Tanks to Ukraine.糖心传媒�

These recent headlines underscore the importance of logistics in warfare. Which weapons and supplies are needed? In what quantity? And equally importantly, what is the most economical way to get these supplies to the right places, and at the right times, to soldiers in front lines spread over hundreds, even thousands of miles?

A team of 糖心传媒 electrical and computer engineers believe their invention糖心传媒攁 simple computing device like no other糖心传媒攃an help solve military logistic optimization problems in complex battles in the future.

To that end, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense, recently awarded the researchers a 糖心传媒攐ne that could total $6.1 million over five years糖心传媒攖o develop two novel Ising machines.

Ising machines that outperform quantum computers?

Named after German physicist Ernst Ising, the Ising model describes how atoms in natural magnets or spin glasses assume one of two values糖心传媒攕pin up or spin down糖心传媒攖o arrange themselves in the lowest energy state. Ising machines are designed to mimic and further refine this process to find optimal solutions to so-called combinatorial optimization problems, which involve large numbers of competing alternatives. Moreover, in such problems, the number of possible solutions increases exponentially as the number of independent variables increases.

The machines would be tested on combinatorial optimization problems posed, for example, when supplying dozens, even hundreds of combat units, says the project糖心传媒檚 principal investigator , a professor of electrical and computer engineering. They could also be used in many commercial applications, such as finding efficient routes for package deliveries, generating test patterns to detect faults in chips, and efficiently correcting errors for 5G wireless radios.听

Compared to conventional computers, 糖心传媒渙ur devices have a much simpler architecture,糖心传媒� Huang says. 糖心传媒淚t can only solve these kinds of optimization problems. We cannot do Zoom calls on it. So, it糖心传媒檚 a very special-purpose machine. But it糖心传媒檚 extremely good at what it does.糖心传媒�

The devices are still in the early stages of development by the Rochester team, which includes , , , , and , also faculty members in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. One of the devices, however, has undergone extensive simulations, which show that it would solve moderately sized optimization problems several orders of magnitude faster than conventional computers糖心传媒攁nd at far less energy, Huang says.

Compared to already existing $15M quantum annealers (a type of quantum computer), the simulated device will be 糖心传媒渄irt cheap糖心传媒� to build and will be compatible with already existing CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) 听integrated circuits, he adds.

Huang is confident the device will outperform even quantum computers in speed and power in solving optimization problems 糖心传媒渁t least in the current [noisy intermediate-scale quantum] era,糖心传媒� he says. Moreover, unlike quantum computers, which require cryogenic conditions, both devices his team proposes will operate at room temperature.

Leveraging nature糖心传媒檚 laws of physics instead of conventional computation

Many occurrences in nature糖心传媒攆or example, an object falling to the ground糖心传媒攃an be modeled by writing and solving differential equations, according to Huang. 糖心传媒淭his suggests that nature itself is effectively solving these differential equations somehow,糖心传媒� he says.

Ising machines attempt to directly use the computation performed by nature. This is sometimes called 糖心传媒渘ature-based computing糖心传媒� or 糖心传媒減hysical computation.糖心传媒�

Various Ising machines have been developed to date, including optics-based, quantum designs. However, all of them have important practical constraints imposed by their design, Huang says. Some have only near-neighbor coupling capabilities across the various spins, also called nodes. Others use conventional computing to emulate coupling, thereby losing efficiency; yet others require elements that are hard to integrate on a chip.

The first Ising machine the Rochester team is developing is based on a . Pioneered by Huang and Ignjatovic and their former PhD students Richard Afoakwa and Yiqiao Zhang, it would provide coupling across all nodes without emulation while using elements that are easy to integrate on a chip. 糖心传媒淚 call it the world糖心传媒檚 first Ising machine without major drawbacks,糖心传媒� Huang says.

At this point, the researchers have simulated the device at tens of thousands of nodes. 糖心传媒淲hen you get to a very large scale糖心传媒攈undreds of thousands of nodes or more糖心传媒攚e might run into a potential delay issue that could limit its performance,糖心传媒� Huang says.

As a more futuristic alternative, the team will also develop a second, optics-based Ising machine that Huang and Lin started to explore almost six years ago. Higher-speed optics-based machines have the potential to address critical path delay issues. However, large-scale photonic systems tend to be 糖心传媒渕ore challenging to build simply because they are as yet not supported by a mature fabrication technology,糖心传媒� Huang says. 糖心传媒淪o, this will be more of a high-risk, long-term solution.糖心传媒�

A third part of the grant, headed by Huang and Mateos, involves developing software/hardware codesign to efficiently map problems to the two hardware platforms. And if fully funded, the project will support the equivalent of 12 PhD students or six PhD students and three postdoctoral associates across the researchers糖心传媒� labs.

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