A research team at the University of Seville, Spain, developed a novel extension of virus machines, an emerging computing model that draws inspiration from how viruses propagate among hosts. These super virus machines, as the team calls them, address time efficiency limits in basic virus machines. This work was published under the title "Super Virus Machines: Faster Virus Transmission, More Efficiency Using Superchannels" on March 21 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal.
The new computational model introduces a special kind of channel called a superchannel. Unlike a regular channel in the basic virus machine model, where only a single virus from a host can be transmitted and replicated at a time, a superchannel allows all viruses within the host to be transmitted simultaneously and to spread in parallel, amplifying the virus population more rapidly and thus improving computational efficiency.
A virus machine is designed by defining its internal architecture: the number of hosts, the arrangement of superchannels, the instruction sequences, and the rules for virus replication and transfer. The study evaluates two types of super virus machines: machines for function computing and machines for generation.
In function computing mode, super virus machines are used to perform basic arithmetic operations including addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. For example, when computing addition, super virus machines can reduce the steps required from a+b+3 in basic virus machines to just 2 steps for an input of (a,b).
In generating mode, super virus machines produce sets of natural numbers such as even numbers, perfect squares, and powers of two, while using fewer computational components. For instance, generating the set of even numbers requires only two instructions and two hosts with super virus machines, a reduction from the four instructions needed in the basic models.
The team envisions tackling NP hard problems and other complex math problems, after further enhancing the capabilities of the current super virus machines. Their future research may explore adding more biologically inspired mechanisms, such as mutation, host replication, and host death.
