Scientists Want to Build a Super-Fast, Self-Replicating Computer That "Grows as It Computes"

Scientists say it's possible to build a new type of self-replicating computer that replaces silicon chips with processors made from DNA molecules, and it would be faster than any other form of computer ever proposed - even quantum computers.

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The basic idea is that our current electronic computers are based on a finite number of silicon chips, and we're fast approaching the limit for how many we can actually fit in our machines. 

To address this limitation, researchers are currently working on making quantum computers a reality - super-powerful devices that replace the bits of electronic computers with quantum-entangled particles called qubits.

Unlike regular bits that can only take on the form of 1 or 0 in the binary code, qubits can take the form of 0, 1, or a superposition of the two simultaneously, which allows them to perform many different calculations at once.

Obviously this would result in a huge boost in speed, but quantum computers are an incredibly difficult thing to get right, because of how complicated it is to create the exact conditions for not one quantum-entangled particle, but a whole lot of them.

Despite concerted efforts all over the world, no one has managed to build a fully functioning quantum computer.

But the secret third option here is a DNA-based machine that gets all the benefits of a quantum computer, without the headache of quantum weirdness, because it's based on DNA doing what DNA does best - replicating.

The research has been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface