Chinese researchers develop high-precision scalable analog matrix computing chip based on resistive memory, realizing for the first time an analog computing system whose accuracy rivals that of digital computing in accuracy, according to the Science and Technology Daily. The findings are published on October 13, 2025 in Nature Electronics. Photo: screenshot of the article in Nature Electronics

Chinese researchers develop high-precision scalable analog matrix computing chip based on resistive memory, realizing for the first time an analog computing system whose accuracy rivals that of digital computing in accuracy, according to the Science and Technology Daily.

The breakthrough was achieved by a team led by researcher Sun Zhong from the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Peking University, in collaboration with the School of Integrated Circuits, according to the report.  

The chip delivers computing throughput and energy efficiency 100 to 1,000 times greater than current top digital processors (GPUs) in solving key scientific problems such as large-scale MIMO signal detection. The findings were published on October 13 in Nature Electronics, according to the report. 

How to achieve both high precision and scalability in analog computing — allowing it to fully leverage its inherent advantages in modern computational tasks — has long been a century-old challenge for the global scientific community, according to the Science and Technology Daily.

Sun's team took an integrated innovation approach, combining novel devices, original circuits, and classical algorithms to build a high-precision, scalable analog matrix solver based on resistive memory arrays — achieving, for the first time, 24-bit fixed-point accuracy in analog computing.

In terms of performance, it outperformed a high-end GPU core when solving a 32×32 matrix, and for larger 128×128 problems, its computing throughput was more than 1,000 times faster than top digital processors — what takes a GPU a full day, this chip can finish in about a minute, according to the report.  

At the same precision, it is also over 100 times more energy-efficient, offering a breakthrough for next-generation high-efficiency computing centers, according to the report. 


Global Times