>>11098619>But we are nearing the limit of normal computersNo. We are nearing the limit of silicon. Which is slightly different. We're at 7nm right now while the limit is at 0.5nm (size of the exact number of atoms necessary to make a fundamental silicon transistor). This means we have about 10 die shrinks left or about ~20 years of progress at current levels left.
However non-silicon superconductors are extremely promising. Graphene is the biggest candidate for this. The main thing about superconductors is that they don't generate any resistance meaning heat generation when clocking higher will be eliminated.
The clockspeed of a graphene CPU is estimated to be about ~300 Terrahertz. Or about 10,000x the clockspeed of current silicon CPUs. Of course it would add other benefits as well such as integrated memory within the CPU itself meaning we won't have Cache or Ram anymore. Instead the CPU is ALSO the memory module. This would make CPU calculations millions of times faster than they are currently.
Going from silicon CPUs to Graphene computing is just as big of a jump in performance as it was when we jumped from Vacuum Tubes to Silicion transistors.
So don't worry about computer technology stagnating too much. As long as we get graphene CPUs manufacturing figured out on a large scale within 20 years (it's already possible on small scales but extremely expensive so only used for military purposes)
