Recently, Google’s parent Alphabet merged its AI research units. Credit: JHVEPhoto via Shutterstock.

Google DeepMind, the artificial intelligence (AI) unit of Alphabet, has announced a new AI system that it claims could make computing more efficient.

According to a research paper published in scientific journal Nature, the discovery is focused on sorting and hashing algorithms.

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These processes are fundamental in computing and are used trillions of times a day to sort, store, and retrieve data, DeepMind said.

Called AlphaDev, the new AI system has discovered new faster sorting and hashing algorithms.

It is the latest iteration of DeepMind’s AlphaZero AI model, which is being used to optimise data centres.

Sorting algorithms are used to process and display information digitally such as the order of online search results and social media posts.

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Hashing algorithms turn data into a unique string of characters to help users find what they are looking for in places such as databases.

DeepMind claims that compared to the algorithms in the C++ library, AlphaDev’s algorithm increases efficiency for sorting short sequences of elements by 70% and about 1.7% for large sequences.

For hashing AlphaDev’s algorithm increased the efficiency by 30% for hashing functions in the 9–16 byte range.

Developers have access to both algorithms through open-source libraries.

DeepMind chief business officer Colin Murdoch was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal: “It means that we can carry out the same amount of computing using much fewer resources.”

According to Murdoch, DeepMind has collaborated with units across Google and Alphabet to deploy AI systems like AlphaDev to optimise network resources, keep data centres cool, and distributed computing resources across servers as part of its ongoing drive to make computer systems more efficient.

This April, Alphabet merged its AI research units Brain and DeepMind to accelerate its AI efforts.