MOORE’S LAW IS DEAD?!

At MIT’s EmTech Digital Conference held in San Francisco, Dr. Bill Dally, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of Research at NVIDIA claimed that Moore’s Law is dead. I immediately went into mourning and snapped a picture of a figure depicting that processing speed was plateauing. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Bill’s presentation; click here to access the presentation (1:25 claim that Moore’s Law is dead).

Moore's Law Defined

For the non-technical readers, Gordon Moore was the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and CEO of Intel. Moore's Law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years. 

If you use the definition "the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years," then Bill Dally is correct. However, Dr. Dally was not referring to the number of transistors per integrated circuit in his presentation. He was referring to processing speed and was using the more common definition that "chip performance doubles roughly every 18 months."

Putting 2n + 2 Together

Moore’s Law is still likely alive and well and here is why: Functional quantum computers exist, but they are expensive and error prone.

Tatjana Curcic from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) stated: “A number of current quantum devices with more than 50 qubits exist, and devices with greater than 100 qubits are anticipated soon. Qubits’ short lifetime and noise in the system limit how many operations you can do efficiently, but a new quantum optimization algorithm has opened the door for a hybrid quantum-classical approach that could outperform classical systems.”

To anyone that has followed the history of advanced technology development in the United States, the idea that quantum computers exist should come as no surprise. During the Cold War, the United States released images and videos of many highly classified technology systems, like stealth aircraft decades after they were developed (click here for a list of secret stealth aircraft).

As a budding engineer and tech startup owner, I saw the first solicitation for quantum computing design and engineering in 2010. In 2014 as a research scientist, I saw the first solicitation for quantum computing software engineers.

Currently in 2019, there are numerous non-classified programs related to advanced quantum computing applications in the government and industry (adaptive annealing, monte carlo simulation, quantum error corrections) https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs

Sorry Bill, you are mistaken. Moore’s Law is likely alive and well, just not in the sense that we are accustomed. 

Moore's Law is not dead, CPUs are dead.

Andrew Huff is a technologist interested in all things technology. He brings people together from different backgrounds to find innovative solutions to complex problems.