Asianometry Can Superconductors Put an AI Data Center into a Shoebox?
35 snips
Nov 23, 2025 Exploring the tantalizing possibility of shoebox-sized AI data centers, the discussion delves into revolutionary superconductors powering future tech. From IBM's groundbreaking Josephson junctions to Japan's struggles with latching issues, the podcast highlights the evolution of quantum logic circuits. Innovations by Snowcap Compute promise astonishing heat efficiency and speed, raising questions about energy consumption in data centers. This ambitious leap into miniature computing could reshape our technological landscape.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
IBM's Early Superconductor Setback
- IBM's Josephson project in the 1960s-1980s struggled with manufacturing, material degradation, and heat removal, and it ended in 1983.
- Their latching junctions required RF resets and suffered 'punch-through' at ~1 GHz, causing crashes and limiting speed.
Josephson Junctions Enable Current-Based Logic
- Josephson junctions switch between zero and non-zero voltage by crossing critical thresholds, letting current represent logic rather than voltage.
- This current-controlled behavior enables single-flux quantum pulses as consistent, picosecond-scale signals useful for computation.
RSFQ Turns Pulses Into Logic
- RSFQ repurposed the emitted SFQ pulses as discrete logic events, mapping pulse presence to binary 1 and absence to 0.
- RSFQ reached tens of GHz and produced functioning circuits quickly, showing SFQ logic's practical speed advantage.