IBM's latest chip packs in twice as many transistors as the current state-of-the-art chip by adding a second layer of silicon circuitry

The rapid advancement and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as the machine learning models underpinning the functioning of ChatGPT, Gemini and similar platforms, have posed new demands on the electronics engineering industry.

For 25 years, every faster phone and thinner laptop’s story has been pretty much the same. It involved shrinking the transistor, cramming more of them onto a semiconductor chip, rinse and repeat the process every couple of years.

One of South Africa’s leading computer scientists has weighed in on the significance of the first sub-1nm chip.