Nature Paper on Ising Machine

Shastri Lab’s latest research on a photonic Ising machine for tackling optimization and combinatorics problems, has been published in Nature, one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals.

Many of today’s toughest optimization and combinatorics problems still overwhelm modern supercomputers. In the Nature study, Programmable 200 GOPS Hopfield-inspired photonic Ising machine, we show that a tabletop, room-temperature photonic computer—built from off-the-shelf components and based on the century-old Ising model of magnetism—attempts to address these complex problems.

Led by Shastri Lab, in collaboration with McGill, this work is the culmination of our students’ outstanding efforts. Congratulations!

Left: Light solves complex problems by exploring an energy landscape in search of equilibrium. Click image to enlarge.

(Photo courtesy of Prof. B. Shastri.)