Talented NIST scientists predict the far future of science and technology

Accurately predicting the future in emerging technology fields that are constantly evolving is not an easy thing. Too much changes too quickly, and rare breakthroughs can become mainstream almost overnight. When we write our yearly predictions for government and technology in Nextgov/FCW, we generally confine our forecasting to the following year, which allows for a little bit of hedging, although it’s still pretty tough being consistently accurate.

Over at The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the scientists and researchers there are tasked with actually creating or defining many aspects of that future. On their main webpage, they feature several high-level topics, such as artificial intelligence, climate change, health and bioscience, cybersecurity, infrastructure and quantum computing, that are actively being researched. Asking the scientists working on those projects to predict the future of those fields would likely be pretty interesting, which is exactly what NIST officials recently did.

NIST asked several of their postdoctoral researchers, who have completed their doctoral studies but only recently started working in one of those aforementioned fields, what they think the future will hold. Their responses were both interesting and surprising.

A diamond standard in computing

Trey Diulus, a new associate at NIST Gaithersburg working in the Advanced Electronics Group of the Nanoscale Device and Characterization Division in the Physical Measurement Laboratory, believes that the silicon inside our computer devices will one day be replaced by diamonds.

Diulus explains that the silicon substrate that makes up the majority of computers these days is able to work at temperatures as high as 215 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the efficiency of silicon begins to drop at about 130 degrees, which is why computers and electronic devices need things like cooling fans and heat sinks to both improve their performance and help them to last longer. This can be an even bigger problem in very hot environments like inside the engine compartments of vehicles, many of which are now lined with computer chips.

According to Diulus, one solution to that hot problem might be to replace silicon with material made from diamonds, which have no problem operating at higher temperatures. Right now it’s physically possible to make a computer using artificial, lab-made diamonds, but the process of imprinting the circuitry onto those diamonds is both difficult and expensive, two areas that NIST is studying and trying to simplify.

“Our lab is currently researching ways to treat diamonds using standard lab equipment that most universities and research facilities can access, instead of the current standard of purchasing expensive treated diamond samples from companies,” Diulus said. “In this case, our first goal is to provide labs that otherwise wouldn’t be able to buy these expensive samples with a way to prepare their own samples.”

Once that problem is solved, the next step would be to design devices and computers made from diamonds, something Diulus predicts will happen one day in the future.

“I’m most excited about having reliable electronic devices that will not break down at the temperatures that silicon does,” Diulus said.

Computers that think like humans

The newest Generative AIs like ChatGPT are already demonstrating remarkable abilities to solve complex problems, with some of them even taking on human-like qualities. But they are still limited by having to conduct human-like thinking processes within complex electronic frameworks, sending data back and forth between computer components like memory and CPUs. 

However, William Borders, a postdoctoral fellow in the Alternative Computing Group in the Nanoscale Device Characterization Division of the Physical Measurement Laboratory, believes that new computer chips will allow AIs to process everything right on the chip itself, much like humans do within their own brains. That will make future AIs much more efficient, and also more human-like.

“Our research shows that you can process AI operations on the memory of the chip itself, without information having to move to different locations,” Borders said. “We are researching how a novel device, known as a magnetic tunnel junction, can help demonstrate the effectiveness of new computing approaches that can keep up with the requirements of AI by allowing computer memory to operate on data like a neural network.”

In addition to making AI processing more energy efficient, having an AI exist on a single chip would be ideal for things like planetary exploration where both energy and space is limited onboard unmanned, robotic vehicles.

Artificial antibodies will protect humans from disease

Our bodies have a robust series of defenses known as antibodies that are designed to locate and destroy invading diseases. They do a great job, but can be overwhelmed at times by certain bodily invaders like COVID-19 or the flu. But Melinda Kleczynski, a postdoctoral researcher with the NIST Mathematical Analysis and Modeling Group, predicts that one day we may be able to design artificial antibodies that can be injected into people to provide them with an extra layer of protection specifically designed to mitigate whatever disease is affecting them.

“My colleagues and I are working to help the biomedical community understand the full range of shapes and movements an antibody can have,” Kleczynski said. “Though you already have antibodies in your body, we’re working with a family of artificial antibodies that can be introduced into the body through injected medication, known as monoclonal antibodies.”

Kleczynski and her colleagues are using mathematical models and simulations to both measure antibodies and also test how effective they, or their artificial counterparts, might be in terms of treatments.

“I’m excited to see how our research helps promote a better understanding of the changing structure of antibodies,” Kleczynski said. “We hope our work will promote safety and innovation in future drug development.”

The quantum question

In terms of cutting edge science, almost nothing has more potential than quantum computing. But we are still at the very beginning of understanding how it all works. That’s probably why Dr. Akash V. Dixit, an experimental physicist in the Advanced Microwave Photonics group at NIST Boulder, doesn’t really have a specific prediction for what comes next in quantum. However, with quantum computers slowly getting more powerful as well as increasingly going mainstream, he says that we will soon see the power of quantum computers and technology employed in new areas where it can really make a difference.

“In the near future, I’m excited by all the ways quantum technology will be used in fields for which it was not originally developed,” Dixit said. “For example, in addition to building quantum computers, the same quantum technology is being used to search the cosmos for invisible ‘dark’ matter, measure gravitational waves and develop better space-based cameras for studying the early universe.”

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys