DARPA funds computer chip that introduces small errors in its calculations
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029742
MIT Technology Review : The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wanted to find a way to improve results from computer software when the input data is noisy. To do that DARPA worked with Joseph Bates of Singular Computing to develop a computer chip designed to produce close-but-incorrect answers to mathematical calculations: When asked to add 1 and 1, it came up with answers like 2.01 or 1.98. Bates tested the chip for a variety of functions and found that it performed very well on tasks such as high-resolution radar imaging, extracting 3D information from stereo photos, and deep learning . In a test of software that tracks objects in a video, the chip was 100 times as fast as a conventional chip and used less than 2% as much power.
