TechnologyA tiny chip on the tip of a fibre-optic cable can passively harness light to perform AI computations, dramatically reducing the amount of energy and computing power required 7 February 2025 A chip on the end of an optical fibreUniversity of Shanghai for Science and Technology in ChinaAn artificial intelligence chip smaller than a grain of salt can perch at the end of an optical fibre, harnessing the physics of light to process the information passed through the fibre while using far less energy and computational power than typical AI techniques.Optical fibres can carry data at the speed of light, but decoding these light signals usually happens on a slower and more energy-intensive external computing device. The new AI chip could perform that data-processing task more quickly while