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takyon writes:

Optalysys, a company that has long promised "optical coprocessors" enabling up to exascale performance computing in a desktop form factor, has brought on some new science advisers:

Optalysys Ltd., a start-up commercializing light-speed optical coprocessors for AI/deep learning, today announced the formation of its first Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) comprising experts in AI/machine learning, bioinformatics/genomics and optical pattern recognition. The inaugural SAB members include Professor Douglas Kell of The University of Manchester, Professor Timothy Wilkinson of University of Cambridge and ex-senior NASA scientist, Dr. Richard Juday.

"Collectively, these experts have deep knowledge in areas most critical to our long-term success," said Dr. Nick New, founder and director, Optalysys. "We're excited to work closely with them through the process of bringing to market our unique optical approach to super-fast, low-power computing to enable more tech innovators and scientists to create a better world."

Dr. Juday is no stranger to vaporware.

However, Optalysys has apparently found a niche for its machines: genomic analysis:

Optalysys, a U.K company seeking to commercialize optical co-processor technology, today announced completion of its Genetic Search System (GENESYS) project conducted with the prestigious Earlham Institute (EI). Citing a dramatic power saving and performance speedup for computing a traditional genomics alignment problem, Optalysys says the work demonstrates the effectiveness and maturity of its optical processing technology, which the company promotes as a post-Moore's Law alternative.

[...] The benchmark GENESYS project aligned metagenomics reads sequenced from the Human Microbiome Project Mock Community (a well characterized microbial community) against a database consisting of 20 bacterial genomes totaling 64 million base pairs. "The optical system exceeded the original targets delivering a 90 percent energy efficiency saving compared to the same test run on EI's HPC cluster, with an accuracy comparable to the highly sensitive nucleotide form of BLAST, BLASTn (part of a family of Basic Local Alignment Search Tools used to compare query sequences with a library or database of sequences)," reported Optalysys.

Technology from the GENESYS project is launching in February 2018 as a cloud-based platform to a closed beta program of a select group of genomic institutes including EI, the University of Manchester, Oregon State University, and Zealquest Scientific Technology Co. in cooperation with the Shanghai Bioinformatics Center, Chinese Academy of Science.

Previously: Computing With Lasers Could Power Up Genomics and AI

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