- il y a 23 heures
Spiral Solutions Technologies for a Sustainable Future
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TechnologieTranscription
00:00So it's a great pleasure to be here. Thanks a lot for coming to the last session and it will
00:07be quite a bit of a change of the gears now.
00:11So from Quantum we go a little bit more into the material world.
00:17And so let me start with, so it's going to be a few stories and I'll try to make them
00:27as coherent as possible for you.
00:30And let me start with this famous book by Francis Fukuyama, The End of History.
00:37So the book is from 1992 and of course at that time it was totally justifiable.
00:45But now, of course, if you think about this, well, there was quite a slowdown in science, in technology.
00:58We had the standard roadmap for our semiconductor devices so you could pretty much sit down and relax and make
01:07sure that the Moore's Law would take care about your technology.
01:13But then, suddenly, back in 2000 now, there is a renaissance for science, just if you remember, there was graphene,
01:23topological materials, then the human genome sequencing, then CRISPR-Cas9, then gravitational wave, the quantum supremacy and so on.
01:35And then, so now the general and generative AI, so it feels like really we are going in the, there
01:46is a new history, a new history going on.
01:49Personally, if you ask me, I would still probably prefer 1992, so less grey hair, less, less fat, less, less
01:57trouble.
01:58But of course, technologically, it's really encouraging that we have so much, so much many new things appearing, appearing every
02:06year.
02:07So, science is really thriving, but of course, all the innovations, they come at a cost, the impact on environment
02:16increases, increases dramatically.
02:18So, they, so now, and then, starting about 15 years ago, we start to hear about some, this new, new
02:26buzzword, the, the, sustainability.
02:29So, we, again, we start to prepare new sustainable solution, and there are quite a few, quite a few of
02:36them, of them now.
02:37It's really encouraging to see that in, in France, the nuclear is still part of the, part of the sustainable.
02:44But even though, you always play a whack-a-mole fact, because you, you keep producing those new solutions, but
02:52they, they, they, but by themselves, they impact on the, on the, on the, on the environment.
02:59So, we really need to think a little bit beyond that, and we really need to think beyond the, the
03:04standard circular model, and we need to create even more circularity,
03:10or, as we would like to argue, we, we need to create more, more of a spiral solutions here.
03:17So, let me just show you a couple of examples of what, what do I mean by a spiral solution.
03:23So, this, these days, we are very actively pumping out CO2 from the, from the atmosphere.
03:30I mean, for me, it sounds absolutely crazy.
03:33Imagine how huge is the atmosphere, and we are extracting CO2 by, by, by, by those, those machines.
03:41Of course, we have to spend energy for that, and then what we do, we take carbon, we take, or
03:47we, so we, we put the CO2, or we turn it into carbon, releasing oxygen, and we have to store
03:52it somewhere on the ground.
03:54Now, of course, and that's a, it does work, but it, it actually takes quite a lot of energy to
04:01do that, but imagine if you would, you, if you think something a little bit out of, out of the
04:07box,
04:07and one of the ways to produce carbon, carbon nanomaterials out of the CO2, which you, which you extracted, and
04:17then there are a couple of, a couple of advantages of doing this.
04:21For example, you can stick these carbon nanomaterials, like graphene, or carbon nanotubes, or fullerines, even, into concrete, and, of
04:31course, concrete produces, are the largest CO2 emitters in the world.
04:37So, now, you are not only withdrawing CO2 from the atmosphere, but you are reducing the amount of concrete, which
04:45you need to produce, because those nanomaterials, they increase the strength of the, of the, of, of, of, of concrete.
04:52So, you are decreasing the CO2 emission even, even further.
04:57Plus, what you can do, what we do with our machines, because we know exactly how much of the carbon
05:03nanomaterials we produce, we can use it as a, as a proof of work, and we can register it on
05:09the ledger.
05:10So, we will have this project with, with, with WeChain, where you can immediately use it as a, as a
05:16proof of work, to offset from your, for your, for your, for your carbon, carbon credits.
05:22So, there, there is another, there is another way how to, how to think about this.
05:30So, there is another example.
05:31So, there is also, for years, we, we enjoyed this, this, this, this scalability offered to us by the Moore's
05:43law and by the, by the Dennett law.
05:46But, for the last few years, we see that the Moore's law is still okay.
05:50The, the, the, the Dennett scaling completely fails us.
05:55We really hit this power wall.
05:57So, our chips become, start to overheat.
06:00So, we really have to spend a lot of energy on the, on the cooling.
06:04So, already now, we spend about 10% of our energy on the, on the, for the computational tasks.
06:12And this, this number is going to raise even higher with the advantage of AI.
06:17So, I would say, another 5% in the next, in the next five years, quite, quite, quite easily.
06:23So, again, so, you have to, you have to think a little bit outside of the, of the world, of
06:29the, of the box.
06:30You already heard in the previous three sessions that quantum computing is advancing.
06:35I would say, neuromorphic computing needs to be looked at carefully as well.
06:40What we are doing in our lab for the last couple of years is the new type of computing, the
06:46call is called probabilistic computing.
06:49So, which works fantastically well for me.
06:51I mean, we just had a conversation with Joe Brass that, I mean, my opinion that it's, it will, it
06:57can be equally, equally popular as the, as the, as the quantum computing in the future.
07:04And, of course, it's also, it is also, it is also very spiral because we use the power of, of
07:09AI to design the new materials for the, for the neuromorphic and for the probabilistic computing.
07:16But at the same time, the same materials are being, being used in those, in those computations.
07:23And they, they, they're, they're speeding up our, our computations and, and, and, and our, our AI.
07:29So, generally, what we would like to, to argue is that circular economy is not, is not going to work
07:37because you really, you would never be able to, to catch up with the, with the, with the, with the
07:42current way we are, we're using energy.
07:45You really need to go a little bit beyond, is the spiral economy.
07:48And the only way is really to fast transfer the new knowledge, which, which people produce in the labs into
07:56the, into the new, new technology.
07:58So, I would like to spend the last five minutes of my talk to, to shift gears twice.
08:03So, one thing I wanted to talk to you about is that there is another part of the, of this,
08:09of the story.
08:10Of course, the, the new sustainable solutions are really fantastic.
08:15So, the only problem is, are we using it?
08:18So, in the lab, we have all the, all the best solar cells.
08:22We have fantastic, fantastic batteries.
08:26But implementation of those technologies is not there.
08:30So, the real spiral economy would be only achieved if people start using it.
08:37And people means that pretty much every single one need to be, need to do it.
08:42So, you really go from the scientific discovery into, into the, into technology.
08:50So, you, you invent a new material.
08:52It needs to be, to go directly into the, into technology like solar cells or batteries or whatever.
08:59But, we need to find a way how to convince people using it.
09:04And the, the, the new technologies based on the, on, on the blockchain, on, on web, web 3.
09:13Yeah, are really the, the, probably the best solution here.
09:18Because it allows you to incentivize the use of those, of those technologies to the, to, to, to, to general
09:28public.
09:29So, we actually, we actually do this all the time with the, with, with, with, with WeChain.
09:37There are a number of blockchain apps which allow you to use the sustainable solutions
09:47and gain advantage either through your carbon credits or through other means.
09:54And so we are really proud of this.
09:58And so the last shift of the gears, I really wanted to talk to you about the real future.
10:05So I started my talk with the title, the materials for the future.
10:11So let me tell you a little bit about those materials which we are developing in the lab.
10:17So it's really much beyond quantum, much beyond the probabilistic computing.
10:22It's something in the next 20 years.
10:25And let me start this story with, well, surprise, surprise, with graphene
10:31because it's the simplest possible material which we can think about.
10:35It's only one layer of carbon atoms.
10:38And yet it has a number of those fantastic properties which you can use.
10:43So it's the thinnest, the strongest, the most conductive material.
10:47But at the same time, and then all those properties allow it for it to be used
10:51in many different technologies from batteries to composites to optoelectronics to energy.
10:59And, but the real breakthrough came when people realized that you can now produce many different
11:06materials, all of them, only one atom thick, but they would have very different properties.
11:12And the next, and what you can do with those, you can start assembling them sometimes by hands,
11:18but we have those machines which can do it layer by layer, like in those futuristic movies,
11:24just, and create artificial materials which you can use for many different applications.
11:31And that's the state of the art for the material science right now.
11:36We can design new materials for specific applications.
11:41But if, but of course, scientists, we as scientists, we need to go forward, we need to think further.
11:46So what else can you, can you reach from material science?
11:50We can already now design many different materials for many different applications,
11:55either sustainability or computing or, or, or, or, or energy.
12:00So, but rather than giving you just an example, asking each and everyone,
12:07what kind of new materials do you want to have in the future?
12:11Let me show you this, those few, just a few frames from this movie.
12:17I hope the elder people in the audience would recognize this.
12:21It's Terminator 2.
12:22So for the younger people, I tell you that the movie was made in 1991.
12:27And the plot of the movie is that a robot from 2029 was sent back to 91 to kill Sarah
12:34Connor and her son.
12:36And the only reason I'm showing it to you is to show how directors of that movie thought our future
12:42materials will be.
12:43So it should be flexible, changing shape, changing color, self-healing, and so on, and so on, and so on.
12:52So now we are in 2024 and unfortunately I have very bad news for you that unless we do something
13:01radically different,
13:02we have absolutely no chance to produce, to fulfill the dreams of the, of the director of the Terminator 2
13:10movie.
13:11And the reason is not really the, is not really the, is not really with the, with the, with those,
13:21with robotics.
13:23It's just generally all our technology is like that, that it's basically top down.
13:29So you, it's not functional unless you assemble it into, into the final system.
13:35Only if the final system is functional, you take away one, one cogwheel and it, and it, and it, and
13:41it breaks.
13:41And it's true about all, all of those technologies.
13:44And now we, we, we're, we're, we're really thinking that can we produce, but at the same time biological systems,
13:50they work on a completely different manner.
13:52They, they are functional on many different levels.
13:56Like individual proteins in your body are functional, the, the, the membranes of the cells, the cells themselves.
14:05So you take away a protein and it's still functional in its own right.
14:09So that's what, what we would like to, to, to do.
14:11We would like to design materials which can be, which, which can have this biological functionality.
14:18Then you can downgrade this, the, some functionality to its, to the, to the material level.
14:26And we have those, let, let me skip this.
14:29And, and we, we have those, those materials already.
14:32I just wanted to show you two examples of those smart materials which can have activity and behave almost like
14:41a live system.
14:42So this one is the material which can be, which was designed to help the self-healing properties.
14:48So what you see here is a microscope image.
14:51The tiny dots are individual atoms and then we drill a hole in between.
14:56And if we choose the, the composition of the material correctly, then it, it can be, so the material will
15:02self-heal and just, just close this, this hole by itself.
15:07So it will really behave almost like a, like, like, like a living, a living organism.
15:13So, and not, so just, so this, this hole completely disappears.
15:18So it's just self-healing material like a biological object.
15:21And then another one is the smart material for the drug delivery.
15:26So, the reason we all had to take jabs for our COVID-19 vaccine, because those vaccines are not stable
15:33at the low pH of the high acidity of your stomach.
15:37So you want something which would close, be closed at your, in your stomach, open up only in your, in
15:43your, uh, intestine.
15:45And we designed those, those, those materials, which can, uh, measure what's the acidity outside and would, would, would, would
15:53be able to open or close, uh, on demand.
15:56So, and then there are many, many other smart materials like this, which we designed in our lab.
16:01So, which are, some of them are even based on the really live, a lot, uh, uh, life, life materials.
16:06But at the end of the day, we really believe that, so in the future, we will have those intelligent,
16:13alive materials for a number of, of, of, of different applications in for, mainly for sustainability.
16:21And thank you so much for your, for your attention.
16:24It's really a great, great, great pleasure to be here.
16:26Thank you.
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