IBM is working on what it has called the ‘world’s smallest computer’ and as you can see from this picture they’re not fooling around.
The finished computer is smaller than a grain of salt, and yet has the same computing power as Intel’s X86 chip from the 90s.
IBM is reportedly working on the chip as a new addition to the world of blockchain.
For those that don’t know, blockchain is a new way of tracking transactions and currencies around the world and by creating these tiny chips IBM wants to start embedding them in products.
The end-result is that you can turn almost anything into a smart object that can then be tracked and authenticated as the real thing. A perfect example would be to have a product such as a pharmaceutical drug chipped, it is then shipped all over the world and it can be authenticated at every step of its journey.
There is then also the other aspect of this which is that if we can create computers as small as a grain of salt then it opens up a number of worrying possibilities about how else they can be used from surveillance, tracking to healthcare.
For now though be thankful that this is still very much in the concept stage however when IBM says they’ll start mass producing it in a few years time they’re expecting it to cost less than $0.10.