A New Algorithm Makes It Faster to Find the Shortest Paths

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

quapster

24 points

9 comments

wired.comTechstory

calmpositive

Debate

20/100

AlgorithmGraph TheoryRoute Optimization

Key topics

Algorithm

Graph Theory

Route Optimization

A new algorithm has been developed to efficiently find the shortest paths in complex networks, sparking discussion on its potential applications and implications for related fields.

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01Story posted
Oct 12, 2025 at 7:06 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Oct 12, 2025 at 7:50 AM EDT
44m after posting
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Oct 13, 2025 at 5:12 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (9 comments)

Showing 9 comments

kasperni

3 months ago

1 reply

Why not post the original story instead.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-method-is-the-fastest-way...

atum47

3 months ago

Thank you. The op was so full of ads i couldn't even read it.

hypertele-Xii

3 months ago

3 replies

Only within undirected graphs. Sadly, this won't revolutionize video games, where we still have to use the A* algorithm from 1968 that is the literal computing bottleneck limiting us to mere hundreds of intelligent characters at once in a barely dynamic environment.

I got way too excited.

seniortaco

3 months ago

Jump point search is obscenely fast. It's technically an optimization of A* but the behavior and runtime looks nothing like it.

CMay

3 months ago

In the article it does talk about how they arrived at a partial solution that only worked on undirected graphs, but then they started taking a hybrid approach to get it to work on directed graphs.

The paper also indicates it works on directed graphs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17033

That said, it might only be faster for large, sparse graphs.

mecsred

3 months ago

It only worked on undirected graphs in 2023. This article is about the newest breakthrough that works on directed graphs as well.

mellosouls

3 months ago

1 reply

Discussed here a couple of months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44812695

quapsterAuthor

3 months ago