News from Science China Press

As artificial intelligence drives demand for faster and more energy-efficient hardware, ferroelectric memristors are attracting growing attention. A new review outlines how these devices combine memory, computation, and learning capabilities in a single platform, offering new opportunities for intelligent computing beyond the traditional von Neumann architecture.

A research team led by Prof. Zhen Gao at Southern University of Science and Technology has achieved the first experimental observation of the three-dimensional (3D) photonic quantum Hall effect of Fermi arcs and its hallmark feature, the one-sided chiral hinge states, in a 3D inhomogeneous magnetic Weyl photonic crystal.

A research team at Peking University proposed an optoelectronic distributed computing system based on an on-chip all-optical supernode. By integrating high-speed silicon photonic transceiver chips, low-loss optical circuit switching (OCS) chips and multiple computing nodes, the system enables intermediate data between different layers of a deep neural network to be directly transmitted and switched through an on-chip high-speed all-optical supernode. This approach reduces latency overheads associated with conventional data movement, packet scheduling and buffering.

As artificial intelligence expands from cloud computing into robots, autonomous vehicles and other real-world systems, conventional electronic architectures face increasing challenges in latency, bandwidth and energy consumption. Researchers from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology propose Brain-like Optical Computing (BOC), a new photonic framework integrating sensing, memory and computation for future edge and embodied intelligence.

Researchers have developed a real-space topological strategy to stabilize fractional orbital angular momentum modes, which are normally unstable in free space. Inspired by quark confinement, the team used optical conformal mapping to stitch fractional phase structures into stable composite wave states. The mechanism was experimentally demonstrated on an elastic flexural wave platform and may offer new opportunities for wave manipulation in acoustics, photonics and on-chip information systems.

A nationwide study in China has shown that serious lower respiratory infections are not driven by the same pathogens at every age. Analyzing 695,142 bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples from hospitalized patients, researchers identified eight life-stage pathogen profiles, 124 significant co-detecting pathogen pairs grouped into three networks, and marked sex disparities. The findings could help refine vaccination strategies, diagnostic panels, and clinical risk assessment.

A team led by Professors Jianping Weng, Sihui Luo and Lianxin Liu from the University of Science and Technology of China published the study Hepatic IFRD1 suppresses metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease via GLUD1/α-KG axis in Science Bulletin.This study identifies the IFRD1-GLUD1-α-KG cascade as a vital link between metabolism and epigenetics. It establishes the first clinical association of IFRD1 with MASLD, reveals a GLUD1-dependent pathogenic pathway, and validates α-KG’s epigenetic function, offering a novel metabolism – epigenetics - targeted therapeutic strategy for MASLD.