naure.com
ScienceSurprise 5/5Difficulty 4/5Reviewed on September 13, 2026

MIT engineers have created a chip that uses heat to perform calculations.

Why it is true

MIT engineers developed silicon microstructures that perform matrix multiplications using only heat flow, without additional electricity or transistors. Heat is encoded as data and flows through a designed geometry, performing analogue computation with over 99 per cent accuracy.

Source: MIT

Would you rather be asked first?

This is the reading side of the site, so the answer is in the sentence above — that is the whole point of it. Test yourself works the other way round: the question comes on its own, and the fact and the explanation only appear once you have answered.

Test yourself →10-question challenge

Related facts

More in Science

See all →