What would you do if the Internet were a million times faster? Hard to imagine the possibility isn’t it? Well that’s one potential for a future technology – “Silicon Photonics” – a technology that uses everyday silicon to send and receive optical information among computers for faster, smaller, more energy efficient and much cheaper communications components than ever before.

Why is it important? As processor core count keeps climbing, transfer of massive amounts of data will be essential for future computers. Heavy-duty computing applications such as doctors who are diagnosing and treating patients in remote villages or for lifelike 3-D virtual worlds will require ultra-fast data transfer.

We spent some time at the Intel Museum in Hillsboro, Oregon talking to some local fifth graders about the exciting research Intel is doing in this field. See their enthusiastic response!

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