this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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China has begun mass production of next-generation processors based on molybdenum disulfide instead of traditional silicon semiconductors[^4]. According to Professor Li Hongge's team at Beihang University, these chips merge binary and stochastic logic to achieve better fault tolerance and power efficiency for applications like touch displays and flight systems[^9].

The breakthrough came through developing a Hybrid Stochastic Number (HSN) system that combines traditional binary with probability-based numbers[^9]. This innovation helps overcome two major challenges in chip technology - the power wall from binary systems' high energy consumption, and the architecture wall that makes new non-silicon chips difficult to integrate with conventional systems[^9].

[^4]: AzerNews - China mass-produces silicon-free chips [^9]: SCMP - China starts mass production of world's first non-binary AI chip

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[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago (5 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust

silicon – 28.2% of earth's crust; 7,200,000 tonnes extracted per year

bismuth – 0.0085% of earth's crust; 10,200 tonnes extracted per year

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

doesn't it say "molybdenum disulfide" in the text?

molybdenum - 1.2 ppm (0.00012%); 227,000 tonnes extracted per year

[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The techradar text says bismuth; the azernews.az text says molybdenum

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Silicon is used for way more than just chips though, I'd be surprised if it's more than a percent

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is the first thing that came to mind when reading the article. Replacing silicon with bismuth sounds like a downside.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Industrial diamonds made with almost everything which contains Carbon.

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

And yet Pepto Bismol is found in huge quantities on every drugstore shelf in the world. How will they ever find enough?? 😂