Neil Gershenfeld of MIT and colleagues have designed the new technology using the presence or absence of a sequence of bubbles as a substitute for the conventional “on” or “off” binary language of computer circuits, using glass tubes and liquid that perform as microprocessors.

Although still orders of magnitude slower than conventional computers, bubble logic can operate about 100 times faster than existing microfluidic chips, the researchers say. That should be fast enough to create chemical “memories” that could store thousands of substances the way computers store data and then retrieve and distribute those substances quickly.