Professor Shastri is profiled in Science News in SN 10 Top Scientists to Watch, for his cutting edge creation on photonic computers micmicking the human brain. Excerpt from his profile:
Standard computers are "reaching their fundamental limits". When most modern computers compute, they cannot simultaneously access the bulk of their memory, and when they are retrieving information from memory, they cannot calculate. This makes the computers slow and unwieldy for AI, image processing and other computations with high processing demands. Training and running today’s AI algorithms consume a vast amount of energy — collectively, predicted to demand about as much as Japan’s total electricity consumption by 2026. Computers with architectures that mimic the brain, or neuromorphic computers, promise to be faster and spend less energy. We want to build machines that will be much more energy-efficient and much faster than other computers. — Prof. Shastri