The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology

The computers we use today serve various purposes, driven by technological advancements and economic growth. However, an article by Neil Thompson and Svenja Spanuth highlights a shift in computing from general purpose to specialization.

This fragmentation, caused by the breakdowns in Moore's Law and Dennard Scaling, has already begun. It threatens to divide computing into two categories: 'fast lane' applications that benefit from specialized processors, reaping significant performance boosts, and 'slow lane' applications that will have to rely on general-purpose processors, which may see diminishing improvements and lag in efficiency and capability.

Get access to the article