Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel who died earlier this year, is famous for forecasting a continuous rise in the density of transistors that we can pack onto semiconductor chips. His eponymous “Moore’s law” still holds true after almost six decades, but further progress is becoming harder and eye-wateringly expensive to sustain. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast we look at the practicalities of keeping Moore’s law alive, why it matters, and why physicists have a critical role to play.

Right now, one of the key questions is whether computer hardware can keep up with the demands of large language models and other forms of generative AI. There is also concern over whether computing can help tackle today’s complex global challenges without skyrocketing energy demands. New computing paradigms are needed, and optical- and quantum based-computing may have key roles to play, but there are still big question makers over their practical usefulness at scale.

Physics Word Stories is presented by Andrew Glester and this month’s podcast guests are:

• Louis Barson, director of science, innovation and skills at the Institute of Physics (which publishes Physics World)
• Thomas Ferreira de Lima, a researcher at NEC Labs America
• Anson Ho, an AI forecasting researcher at Epoch

Find out more on this topic in the recent Physics World article ‘Moore’s law: further progress will push hard on the boundaries of physics and economics’.