Molecular computation that rolls energetically downhill

TL;DR - Researchers demonstrated a DNA-based computer that executes programs by relaxing toward thermodynamic equilibrium. Ten molecular programs completed in as little as one minute, showing the approach can support repeated and larger computations, albeit with substantial slowdown at scale.

• Computation proceeds energetically “downhill” toward equilibrium rather than relying on conventional electronic logic.
• Some programs were rerun with distinct inputs up to 25 times.
• The system scaled to 100-bit computations.
• Larger computations incurred substantially longer runtimes.