About 100 years ago, quantum physics was invented. Then around 70 years later in the ’90s along came quantum computing. And now quantum computing is quite topical. Similarly, over a hundred years ago electrokinetics was developed, then in the early 2000s, along came iontronics, which is on the rise. Iontronics is to electrokinetics roughly as quantum computing is to quantum physics. Quantum computing is an application of quantum physics to doing computations, or making machines to do computing. Electrokinetics is moving around ions etc, often in solution, while iontronics is moving around ions to do computations, or make a computer.
Quantum computers are still pretty useless for most purposes, despite the billions sunk into their development. But maybe the formidable technical challenges to making useful quantum computers will be overcome, and they will prove revolutionary. Maybe.
Quantum computers cannot (currently) compete on tasks we care about with our, blistering fast, silicon computer chips. Iontronics involves moving ions around, and ions are inherently slower than the electrons in silicon chips. So, naively, it looks like iontronics will also not be able to compete with our fast silicon. And maybe that is true.
But our brains work by moving ions and molecules around, and we are pretty impressed with our brains. They can do a lot of things. So maybe if we can learn how our brains produce such impressive performance from ions etc, we can make truly competitive iontronics computers. The field of learning from our brains is called neuromorphic computing: “an approach to computing that is inspired by the structure and function of the human brain.” Neuromorphic computing and iontronics are a natural fit.
I genuinely don’t know which one of quantum computing or neuromorphic iontronics, we will be talking about in 10 or 20 years. Maybe both, maybe neither. Only time will tell.
Chance & Necessity 