New Environmentally Friendly Computer Designs

In technology, the incumbent has a considerable advantage. IMHO, these new technologies may have niche applications, but it doesn't seem likely that they would catch up and replace silicon.

Well, that's what horse and carriage companies said about "automobiles", that's what Kodak said about digital cameras, that's what hard drive manufacturers said about solid-state drivers and so on...

Quite true but all of the past new technology examples you present brought multiple improvements to the task. I doubt power reduction alone will be enough to make either of these technologies the next boon.

Power reduction (and cost) are everything in computing. The less power a chip uses, the less cooling it needs, and the more of it you can stack up.

This is why GPUs took away a lot of business from CPU manufacturers.

It's all about TFlops / Watt, especially in large datacenters and supercomputers.

Entire towns and datacenter infrastructures, crypto-mining communities etc. got built around places with cheap electricity. That's how much TFlops / Watt matters.

Why must it be either and not both?

I do find it ironic that both articles promotes the electric power efficiency of their approaches. More instructions per second per unit space will more likely be the deciding factor, self heating be damned.

Well only one can dominate. That doesn't mean both wont have sales. I got the impression that low power consumption was their goal in both cases. It looks like both are a long way from a complete solution. They might both die out.

Here is another design that might change the future of computing:

faster-computer-processors-and-memory-with-new-electro-optical-device

I'd like to have one that won't be obsolete next year.