IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-10-08DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727652
Matthew S. Smith
{"title":"The AI Inference Revolution is Here: Today's Tidal Wave of Queries is Forcing Hardware Makers to Pivot","authors":"Matthew S. Smith","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727652","url":null,"abstract":"SINCE ABOUT 2020, AI has largely focused on training bigger and better models. Large language models (LLMs) ballooned from millions of parameters to trillions. This proved effective: The largest version of OpenAI's GPT-3, released in 2020, correctly answered just 43.9 percent of questions of a popular knowledge-and-reasoning benchmark. Just four years later, GPT-4o reached a score of 88.7 percent on the same exam, effectively matching those of human experts.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 10","pages":"42-48"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149124538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-10-08DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727647
Margo Anderson
{"title":"5 Questions: Peter Bloom: Upgrading Shortwave Radio for Encrypted Global Data Communications","authors":"Margo Anderson","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727647","url":null,"abstract":"Shortwave radios offer a way to connect one location on Earth to practically anywhere else with minimal infrastructure. But these radios come with some drawbacks—a significant one being that, unlike satellite communications, their transmission rates for digital data are typically measured in just hundreds of bits per second.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 10","pages":"19-19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11727647","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149125500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-10-08DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727654
{"title":"Robot of the Month: Microduck","authors":"","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11727654","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 10","pages":"13-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11727654","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149125555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-07DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683618
Benjamin Skuse
{"title":"What It Means to Be a Mathematician When AI Does the Math: Researchers are Debating Motivation, Purpose, and the Future of the Field","authors":"Benjamin Skuse","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683618","url":null,"abstract":"IN THE MID - NOUGHTIES, when music by the Killers and Franz Ferdinand blared out of every pub and nightclub I passed, I spent my days and nights struggling through a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. My research focused on simulating how special light waves interact in liquid crystals and using simple equations to approximate and understand those interactions. When I look back at my thesis now, liquid crystal technology is old hat, and I imagine my work could be completed with AI assistance in a matter of days—maybe hours.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 9","pages":"20-26"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-07DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683584
Samuel K. Moore
{"title":"5 Questions: Mitchell Hsing: A Fab-in-a-Box Democratizes Semiconductor Manufacturing","authors":"Samuel K. Moore","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683584","url":null,"abstract":"When Mitchell Hsing was a grad student at MIT, he and his classmates were doing cutting-edge things using what was essentially cast-off equipment from the chip industry. It made him wonder what could be invented if everyone had access to a small fab of their own. Several years later, the result is Inch-Fab, a startup selling a clean-room system the size of a shipping container for US <tex>${$}$</tex>5 million–<tex>${$}$</tex>15 million that can do just about everything a not-so-advanced fab can.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 9","pages":"19-19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11683584","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148903220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-07DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683614
Kurt Polzin;Robert Schleicher
{"title":"A Reimagined Nuclear Rocket: NASA's Synchronal Bimodal Nuclear Engine Could Slash Travel Time to Mars","authors":"Kurt Polzin;Robert Schleicher","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683614","url":null,"abstract":"THE BIGGEST THREATTO ANY CREWED EXPEDITION to Mars is time. NASA's shortest blueprint for sending people to the Red Planet and back requires spending 620 days in space and 30 days on Mars. Even setting aside the compounding challenges of building life-support systems that can operate without resupply for that long, or the fact that longer journeys leave more time for unlucky accidents, life in microgravity and solar and cosmic radiation will inexorably exact their cumulative toll on human bodies.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 9","pages":"36-43"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-07DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683607
{"title":"Robot of the Month: Aibo","authors":"","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2026.11683607","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"63 9","pages":"13-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11683607","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}