Complementary approaches to low dissipation computing

One of the major problems in the design of powerful computers is their large heat dissipation. The author questions whether there is any minimal dissipation requirements for reliable Turing computation by physical computers. The answer is found to depend on the underlying phase space of the physical machine as well as the precise definition of computation. Two complementary approaches to low dissipation computation within this framework are outlined. The author concludes that it is possible to design very low dissipation computers by either using quantum mechanics to provide a discrete phase space for computation or using special-purpose computers (annealing machines) operating in continuous phase space to solve a restricted (but very useful) class of problems.<>