IBM reveals tiny computer the size of a grain of sand

IBM has revealed a computer so tiny that it can slip through a salt shaker and help prevent the $600 billion a year trade in counterfeit drugs, gadgets, and cash.

The company made the announcement of the new microcomputer yesterday at its Think conference and predicted it would play a pivotal role in a blockchain network designed to monitor fraud in global supply chains.

The microscopic computer which is only a square millimetre in size will act as a so-called 'crypto-anchor' in anti-fraud systems.

According to IBM, the devices cost only 10 cents to manufacture and contain "several hundred thousand transistors, storage, power, and communications capabilities all packed into a footprint about the size of a grain of salt".

The specifications for the computer have not been revealed by the company yet, but a spokesperson told ZDNet that each of the devices is as powerful as an x86 chip from the 1990s.

The computers will be unveiled by IBM researchers at the Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, in a forthcoming paper. IBM has in the meantime, offered a rough outline of the computer's schematics.

According to IBM the dramatic fall in the cost and size of the computers would make it possible to integrate them into products to ensure goods are authentic as they move through the supply chain and on to consumers.

The computer marks the evolution of IBM’s “crypto anchor” programme, which uses a variety of methods to create what amounts to high-tech watermarks for products that verify they’re, for example, from the factory the distributor claims they are, and not counterfeits mixed in with genuine items.

It is small (about 1mm x 1mm), but it can match the power of a complete computer, though not that of a new one. A few hundred thousand transistors, a bit of RAM, a solar cell and a communications module, make it as powerful as a chip from 1990.