Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), an agency of the US military akin to Darpa, is funding a $4.8 million project spearheaded by Boston University College of Engineering, the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Lightmatter, a startup developing “photonic supercomputing” chips.
Electro-photonic computing, or optical computing, is thought to hold the promise of solving one of the biggest technical hurdles that self-driving cars face today – delivering high performance, low latency computing power that is also energy efficient.
At the end of the IARPA-funded experiment, the scientists hope to have “a fully functioning prototype of a self-driving car that runs on light”. [Read more…] about Startup awarded $5 million to build autonomous car that ‘runs on light’