The award-winning research focuses on the development of innovative spintronic devices, particularly those based on magnetic tunnel junctions, for brain-inspired computing and low-power artificial intelligence. The idea is to directly exploit certain natural physical properties of these nanocomponents, such as their non-linear nature, their rapid dynamics and their sensitivity to fluctuations, in order to perform computational functions in a much more energy-efficient manner than in conventional digital architectures. This research is part of a paradigm shift, where materials and components no longer serve merely to store or transmit information, but participate in the computation themselves, thereby paving the way for new hardware approaches to more energy-efficient artificial intelligence.
The Edouard Branly Prize has been awarded since 1990 by the Association of Friends of Edouard Branly. It has served to recognise high-quality research carried out in the spirit of this scholar’s work; he held doctorates in both physical sciences and medicine and was able to combine fundamental research with practical applications. In particular, in 1890 he established the first wireless radio link. Since 2010, the French Federation of Scientific Societies (F2S) has joined forces with the Association of Friends of Edouard Branly to ensure the prize’s continued existence.