As Moore's Law slows, people are starting to look for alternatives to the silicon chips we've long been reliant on. A new optical switch up to 1,000 times faster than normal one day form the basis of new computers that use light rather than electricity. transistors could The attraction of optical computing is obvious.

Increasingly, modern life depends on how skillfully we shuttle electrons through the nanoscale mazes etched on computer chips. These processors aren't just for laptops anymore-they're used in your car, your thermostat, your refrigerator and microwave. And the pandemic has revealed just how deeply our dependence runs.

Moore's Law has been ridiculously accurate for more than 50 years - how long will it hold up? See in this visualization how the actual transistors in CPUs and GPUs compare to the linear progression of Moore's Law. From the early days of microprocessors, to Intel dominance and the rise of GPUs.