Bosons have a wonderful advantage over fermions. Whereas electrons cannot occupy the same space at the same time, photons will happily overlap. So, speaking in broad strokes here, optical computers can certainly have a higher computational/informational density. However, Optalysys's marketing is disingenuous when they use the phrases like "computing at the speed of light." Present day electron based CPUs already compute at the speed of light!
In other words, an optical computer cannot move data from one point to another any faster than a traditional computer. The latency is the same no matter what you're computing with.
However, the ability of optical computers to have a higher computing density (computations per area of space) may negate that issue. Whatever the optical equivalent of RAM would be, it can be theoretically smaller, and thus help to relieve some of the latency issue.
Also interesting about optical computers is that they can perform convolutions for "free". Present day computers are abysmal at convolutions. This is helpful to image processing, graphics rendering, and neural networks.
> Present day electron based CPUs already compute at the speed of light!
No, speed is still below c, which is why on high-frequency signal routes on PCBs the traces must be length-matched, sometimes down to tenths of millimeters.
In other words, an optical computer cannot move data from one point to another any faster than a traditional computer. The latency is the same no matter what you're computing with.
However, the ability of optical computers to have a higher computing density (computations per area of space) may negate that issue. Whatever the optical equivalent of RAM would be, it can be theoretically smaller, and thus help to relieve some of the latency issue.
Also interesting about optical computers is that they can perform convolutions for "free". Present day computers are abysmal at convolutions. This is helpful to image processing, graphics rendering, and neural networks.