ST. PETERSBURG, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Russia's largest bank, Sber, introduced the country's first optical computing processor designed for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, local media reported on Thursday.
The announcement was made by Andrei Belevtsev, senior vice president and head of Technological Development at Sber, during the 2026 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Belevtsev said the new device is based on a photonic integrated circuit developed entirely by the company's researchers. Unlike conventional processors that rely on electronics, the optical computing processor uses light to perform calculations.
"In AI tasks, photonic devices can provide a fundamentally new level of speed and energy efficiency," Belevtsev said. "The first prototype is already capable of performing more than one billion matrix multiplication operations per second, and we see a path toward increasing the frequency of optical operations to 10 GHz and beyond."
He noted that optical matrix multiplication takes only fractions of a nanosecond, while the optical core consumes more than 30 percent less energy than comparable electronic solutions.
Matrix multiplication is one of the most computationally intensive operations in the training and deployment of large AI models. By using light instead of electrical signals, the new chip can perform these calculations almost instantly and with minimal heat generation, potentially reducing the cost of developing and operating advanced AI systems.
Belevtsev said the rapid growth in energy consumption by AI data centers is becoming a serious challenge for both businesses and governments. He described the transition to photonic technologies as a practical way to build a more efficient and scalable computing infrastructure. ■
