With the aim to invent something extraordinary and unique, Intel is creating self-powered microchips. The unique thing about these microchips would be that it could be implanted in the human body, a mobile phone, a building, or anyplace else where people wish to gather information.

During a meeting on Friday with reporters in San Francisco, Intel CTO Justin Rattner described it as “wireless identification and sensing platform,” or WISP and it was among several other technologies described by Rattner during the meeting.

Rattner described, “All of the inventions are designed to be energy-efficient. The WISP sensors would use Intel technology for drawing power from the environment. These are install-and-forget kind of systems.”

He added, “The power would come from wireless transmissions, such as a Wi-Fi hotspot, a cellular tower, or a TV broadcast, making it possible for the sensors to continuously gather information in almost any environment.”

Sensors implanted in street sweepers were used to monitor air quality throughout the city, in an experiment conducted by Intel in San Francisco.

“We could, in fact, litter the planet with these things. Rather than depend on satellite information, we could literally get instantaneous, near-global indication of the state of the planet,” Rattner reported.

Moreover, these self-powered sensors could one day even land into human body and thus help a lot to observe health-related activities, such as heart beating. Researchers could even be capable of detecting viruses in the environment one day in order to determine the potential health risks, if they could shrink detectors to the molecular level.

Rattner said, “Within the data center, sensors could be used to map the heat levels of the different systems in order to create a thermally aware load management system.”