Ti Hua Ji: World’s earliest computer is a silk loom built in China 2000 years ago

The article reveals that the world’s earliest computer is not a 19th-century invention by Charles Babbage but a sophisticated silk weaving loom called the ti hua ji, built in China around 150 BC during the Western Han dynasty. According to the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), this figured loom could be programmed using physical pattern cards to control up to 100 devices simultaneously with perfect precision. The loom mechanized the weaving process by lifting specific warp threads to create intricate silk patterns, effectively functioning like a binary computer where raised and lowered threads represented binary 1s and 0s. The ti hua ji was discovered accidentally in 2012 during the excavation of a Western Han dynasty tomb in Chengdu, where archaeologists found four well-preserved loom models with silk remnants. This discovery clarified the timeline of mechanized weaving in China, highlighting the country’s early technological innovation in textile production. The loom’s programmable design templates allowed artisans to produce high-quality silk fabric efficiently, contributing to China