DeepMind AI's new way to sort objects could speed up global computing

DeepMind AI's new way to sort objects could speed up global computing

Sorting algorithms are basic functions used constantly by computers around the world, so an improved one created by an artificial intelligence could make millions of programs run faster

By Matthew Sparkes

7 June 2023  in New Scientist

Sorting algorithms are a vital part of computing

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An algorithm used trillions of times a day around the world could run up to 70 per cent faster, thanks to an artificial intelligence created by UK-based firm DeepMind. It has found an improved way for computers to sort data that has been overlooked by human programmers for decades.

“We honestly didn’t expect to achieve anything better: it’s a very short program, these types of programs have been studied for decades,” says Daniel Mankowitz at DeepMind.

Known as sorting algorithms, they are one of the workhorses of computation, used to organise data by alphabetising words or ranking numbers from smallest to largest. Many different sorting algorithms exist, but innovations are limited as they have been highly optimised over the decades.

Now, DeepMind has created an AI model called AlphaDev that is designed to discover new algorithms to complete a given task, with the hope of beating our existing efforts. Rather than tweaking current algorithms, AlphaDev starts from scratch.

It uses assembly code, which is the intermediate computer language that sits between human-written code and sequences of binary instructions encoded in 0s and 1s. Assembly code can be painstakingly read and understood by humans, but most software is written in a higher-level language that is more intuitive before being translated, or “compiled”, into assembly code. DeepMind says that assembly code affords AlphaDev more leeway to create more efficient algorithms.  ... '