Stochastic thermodynamics of computation

Understand

One of the major resource requirements of computers - ranging from biological cells to human brains to high-performance (engineered) computers - is the energy used to run them.

• Those costs of performing a computation have long been a focus of research in physics, going back to the early work of Landauer.
• One of the most prominent aspects of computers is that they are inherently nonequilibrium systems.
• However, the early research was done when nonequilibrium statistical physics was in its infancy, which meant the work was formulated in terms of equilibrium statistical physics.