10 Fundamental Scientific Questions on Intelligent Computing

­"Can machines think?" This epoch-making question was first raised by Alan Turing in 1950 in his groundbreaking paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." This opened up a new field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and people’s boundless curiosity about computing and intelligence was also sparked.

Human society has now entered the new era of intelligence. As computing has become ubiquitous, society and each of us are deeply integrated in the network of universal computing and benefit from intelligent computing. Through the deep integration of machine intelligence, data and computing methodologies, significant scientific findings and applications based on intelligent computing have emerged in many important areas, for example, the solution of protein folding problems, the discovery of novel antibiotics, and the medical imaging diagnostics using AI. Intelligent computing has significantly contributed to the progress of society, while at the same time, the demand for computing explodes.

In the face of the ever-growing demand for computing, a series of challenging problems need to be solved. Computational speed is constrained by the traditional von Neumann architecture, computational methods are challenged by big data, computational power supply is constrained by energy consumption, and the use of computing resources is limited by access technology......Many questions remain to be explored and solved, meanwhile sustainable solutions must be found for the future.

Since May 2022, the Zhejiang Lab and Science have jointly solicited fundamental scientific questions with a significant guiding role for the future research of intelligent computing. After a series of solicitation, shortlisting and evaluation, 10 questions found to be most profound and challenging were put forward by a panel of experts from around the world. 

The 10 fundamental scientific questions in the field of intelligent computing are presented here in the hope that they will enlighten researchers globally. It is expected that scholars and researchers will engage in lively discussions on these 10 scientific questions, jointly promote potential breakthroughs within the questions and technological advances, and contribute to the development of human society.

10 fundamental scientific questions on intelligent computing:

1. How do we define intelligence and establish the evaluation and standardization framework for intelligent computing?
2. Is there a unified theory for analog computing? 
3. Where will the major innovations in computing come from, and will quantum computing approach the computational power of the human brain?
4. What new devices will be built (transistors, chip design, and hardware paradigms: photonics, spintronics, biomolecules, carbon nanotubes)?
5. How could intelligent computing enable intelligent machines?
6. How can we understand the storage and retrieval of memory based on the digital twin brain?
7. What is the most efficient path to converge silicon-based and carbon-based learning?
8. How to build interpretable and efficient AI algorithms?
9. Can strong intelligent computing with features of self-learning, evolvability, and self-reflection be realized?
10. How can we use real-world data to discover and generalize knowledge?
 

EurekAlert!, the online, global news service operated by AAAS, the science society.