This review provides a systematic overview of high-performance optoelectronic computing chips. It focuses on six core dimensions including computing power, computing accuracy, power consumption, functional integration, reconfigurability, and emerging photonic computing paradigms. It synthesizes representative technical solutions in the field and establishes a comprehensive analytical framework covering device performance, computing architectures, system integration and novel paradigms like reservoir computing and Ising machines. It summarizes recent research advances and explores targeted optimization pathways for computing performance enhancement and low-power design. It dissects key remaining technical challenges and projects future development trajectories based on cross-layer co-design of devices, architectures, algorithms and heterogeneous integration.

What if we could use a cancer’s own byproduct to make drugs that destroy tumor cells from the inside? That is exactly what researchers at the RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute (PRI) in Japan have done. The proof-of-concept study describes how a synthetically designed compound uses the excess carbon monoxide produced in tumor cells to trigger the production of anti-cancer drugs within the cells themselves. Treatment methods based on this technique would be ideal as it selectively targets tumors and avoids harming healthy cells.

An international team of physicists has, for the first time, developed a molecular ‘machine’ based on the principle of the Archimedes’ screw. The helical molecule is set in rotation by an electric current. When the rotation reaches a certain speed, the current increases abruptly by up to a hundredfold. Prof. Dr Fabian Pauly’s research group at the University of Augsburg used quantum mechanical computer simulations to explain the observed effects. The findings were published in the journal Nature.

The new apparatus developed by the Politecnico di Milano achieves record temporal resolution and reveals previously inaccessible stages of photochemical reactions

A joint research team from NIMS, Toyota Kosen (National Institute of Technology, Toyota College), Saga University, Nara Women’s University, Kiel University (Germany), and other institutions fabricated a two-dimensional structure that exhibits properties of both the honeycomb and Kagome lattices using organic molecules. They discovered that edge states specific to topological materials (states that exist only at the edges, which are distinct from those in the interior) appear in this structure. While organic molecules allow for the flexible design of structures, it is difficult to strongly bind the molecules together electronically. Therefore, inorganic materials had mainly been used to synthesize topological materials. The team’s success in realizing unique electronic states in an assembly of organic molecules (a supramolecular structure) paves the way for a new quantum material design approach using organic molecules. This research result was published in Nano Letters on September 2, 2026.