Variations on that idea have actually been explored by several groups of scientists. Approaches include Behemoth from 2021, FlashGNN and FlashNeuron from 2021, and more recently, the Augmented Memory Grid . It's not hard to imagine that one or several of these will be put into practice, assuming they aren't already.
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Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-13/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Bruno Ferreira Contributor Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
Gururu Assuming current solid state media for L2 cache provide means for verification, I would be curious to know how data in a fiber might be managed free from corruption. Reply
Scott_Tx The same way any data transmitted over fiber is checked. Some kind of CRC code and if there's an error you read it from the storage again. Reply
Gururu Scott_Tx said: The same way any data transmitted over fiber is checked. Some kind of CRC code and if there's an error you read it from the storage again. Sounds great! Reply
Moores_Ghost Carmack? Jim Keller came up with a similar idea back in 2024. Nice that John is adding to it, but we need to give credit where credit is due. Reply
mrlaich So what's stopping this from being a backbone like structure for nervous system linings throughout a robot for "muscle memory" storage? Reply
bit_user The article said: AI model weights can be accessed sequentially for inference I think this isn't true, for transformer-type models. Reply
bit_user Gururu said: Assuming current solid state media for L2 cache provide means for verification, Yeah, L2 caches usually include some ECC. Gururu said: I would be curious to know how data in a fiber might be managed free from corruption. Well, PCIe 6.0 added a forward-error-correction (FEC) header. This avoids the need to retransmit, in the event of small numbers of errors. It's conceptually similar to ECC, I think. For all I know, protocols used over long-haul fiber might already employ such a mechanism. Reply
JohnyFin I think that next logical step to store temp data are limits of speed of light. Correction error management is a challenge. Reply
abufrejoval It's one of the reasons I like looking at old computing stuff so much, right from the start in the 1940's. There is a video out there where JP Eckert discusses the ENIAC design (he might also be dissing John von Neumann), that's just so full of insights into those early stages. Likewise I consider Grace Hopper's lectures a must-see. I keep thinking that by the late 1960's pretty near everything in computing had already been invented, because those guys were really looking in every direction. And the various technologies around RAM were incredibly diverse, they really tried anything that somehow could hold state, expand capacity or relieve the memory bottleneck. Whether it was media (those delay lines, magnetic core, and then DRAM), virtual memory including fixed head magnetic drum drives, or the Harvard vs. the Princeton architecture or even content addressable memory, it had all been tried and tested. Also architecture things like >60 bit designs, single level store, or capability based computing went further than most manage even today. Even in terms of the math theory around computing, most things were already settled by Turing, Post, Shannon etc. Lithography has given the industry incredible growth, but also extreme tunnel vision, Unix has also been a huge throwback compared to Multics. Reply
Spuwho Bell Labs has already built an optical storage device. They switch in laser light using a high speed micromirror and then laser light just reflects indefinitely between mirrors until the micromirror switches the light back out. Some people consider it a time machine since the state of the light never changes as long as it is inside the apparatus. But it seems using a fiber is an overkill, when light switching seems more practical. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/john-carmack-muses-using-a-long-fiber-line-as-as-an-l2-cache-for-streaming-ai-data-programmer-imagines-fiber-as-alternative-to-dram#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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