IBM announced that it has made a significant breakthrough in computer processors by unveiling technology to construct 2 nanometer chips in its test laboratory in its Albany research lab in the United States of America. The company claims that once implemented into computers and electronics, the new chip can not only improve performance by about 45% over current commercially-available 7 nanometer chip products, but uses just about 25% of the energy of a 7 nanometer chip to match its performance.

The technology that IBM unveiled was a transistor, which is the most basic building block of a chip. Transistors act like an on-and-off switch to form the 1s and 0s of binary digits that build the foundation of modern computing. Smaller switches make them faster, smaller, and more power efficient, though problems could arise if electrons leak from switches that are supposed to be turned off. The 2 nanometer chips will be much more efficient than contemporary 5 nanometer chips, which are just beginning to be used in premium smartphones like the Apple iPhone 12. As of now, IBM's 2 nanometer chip is largely just a proof-of-concept. Processors built on the 2 nanometer node are likely still years away.

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