Artificial intelligence (AI) pushes military to next-gen computer performance with energy efficiency
Artificial intelligence (AI) pushes military to next-gen computer performance with energy efficiency
Publish Date: 2026-02-03 05:45:00
Source Domain: www.militaryaerospace.com
- The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is calling for the development of next-generation computing technology that achieves the performance of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors but with energy efficiency 100 to 1,000 times greater.
- The Fast and Curious program aims to meet the computational demands of artificial intelligence, data-intensive workloads, and edge computing which are growing rapidly.
- CMOS technology has remained the dominant force in digital computing for over five decades due to unmatched speed, switching energy efficiency, scalability, and integration density.
- Energy efficiency of CMOS technologies is nearing a fundamental limit, increasing concerns about energy consumption as it may account for up to 50% of total energy usage. Also, thermal management is a significant issue in military supercomputing.
- The program encourages exploration of new device physics, materials, and architectures capable of surpassing current energy limits of CMOS while being compatible with advanced microelectronics manufacturing.
- Companies will design heterostructures, logic, and computational circuits with ultralow energy and high-speed characteristics. The initiative has a two-phase three-year program: feasibility establishment (first 18 months) and system-level integration and scaling-up (second 18 months).
- Interested parties should submit abstracts by February 19, 2026, and proposals by March 31, 2026, through DARPA’s online portal. Further information can be found on the official DARPA website.
