Dina Genkina

4 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Lonestar’s Freedom Data Center payload sits onboard Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander for IM-2 before takeoff. Intuitive Machines Tomorrow, 26 February, SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying an Intuitive Machines mission that will stay on the surface of the moon for approximately three weeks before returning to Earth. Among other things, the Intuitive Machines lander contains a mini data center,

2 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Amanda Stein is the CEO of Q-Cat, a company working to develop quantum sensors for different markets. Stuart Bradford Quantum sensors take the biggest roadblock for quantum computers—unwanted interference, or noise—and turn it into a strength. Noise wrecks quantum computers because the quantum states they use for computation are affected by the slightest disturbances from the environment. But quantum sensors use

3 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum SiTime’s MEMS-based timekeeping device promises to speed up AI by improving timing between computer components. Business Wire AI is changing everything in data centers: New AI-specific chips, new cooling techniques, and new storage drives. Now even the method for keeping time is starting to change, with an announcement from SiTime that the company has developed a new clock that is optimized

3 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Hafþór Björnsson—who played the the Mountain in “Game of Thrones”—“lifted” more than 282 petabytes of data when he dead-lifted a custom barbell with 453 kilograms of Pascari solid-state drives. Original photos: Phison; VDURA At the SC24 supercomputing conference held in November in Atlanta, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (the actor who played the Mountain in “Game of Thrones”), dead-lifted a custom barbell weighed

5 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Paul Gagniuc’s recent book explores the little-known history of antivirus software. We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the Internet itself: The first version of what would become McAfee antivirus came out in 1987—just four years after the Internet booted up. For many of us, antivirus software is an annoyance, taking

Michael Frank has spent his career as an academic researcher working over three decades in a very peculiar niche of computer engineering. According to Frank, that peculiar niche’s time has finally come. “I decided earlier this year that it was the right time to try to commercialize this stuff,” Frank says. In July 2024, he left his position as a senior engineering scientist at Sandia National Laboratories to join a startup, U.S. and U.K.-based Vaire

6 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Aleutie/iStock This year, IEEE Spectrum readers had a keen interest in all things software: What’s going on in the tumultuous world of open-source, why the sheer size of code is causing security vulnerabilities, and how we need to take seriously the energy costs of inefficient code. The ever-growing presence of artificial intelligence also made itself known in the computing world, by

3 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum The semiconductor industry’s long held imperative—Moore’s Law, which dictates that transistor densities on a chip should double roughly every two years—is getting more and more difficult to maintain. The ability to shrink down transistors, and the interconnects between them, is hitting some basic physical limitations. In particular, when copper interconnects are scaled down, their resistivity skyrockets, which decreases how much information

2 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum The National Nuclear Security Administration’s newest supercomputer, El Capitan, is the fastest known computer in the world. Garry McLeod/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory In 1965, the United States and other nuclear powers committed to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear tests. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a successor to the Manhattan Project, now tests nukes only in simulation. To that

9 min read Dina Genkina is the computing and hardware editor at IEEE Spectrum Clark Johnson has had a 7-decade career as an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur that continues to this day. Chuck Weinstock Clark Johnson says he has wanted to be a scientist ever since he was 3. At age 8, he got bored with a telegraph-building kit he received as a gift and repurposed it into a telephone. By age 12, he set