One of the possibilities for adiabatic computing I was interested in some time ago was to use an oscillating power supply. You still lose some energy due to the

One of the possibilities for adiabatic computing I was interested in some time ago was to use an oscillating power supply. You still lose some energy due to the interconnect resistance, but much less, since you're only sustaining the oscillations (the charges don't get dissipated when returning to the ground, they just move back). Then, it's "only" a matter of deciding which part of the circuit will be powered for the next oscillation, and the switching can be done when vds=0. I haven't had the occasion to think about this as much as I wanted, though, so the above explanation might be incorrect. Hopefully this gives you a better idea of the concept (which there are many ways to approach). So yeah, there are losses (mostly due to circuit resistance), but the "switches" are capacitors, which are just "springs" in the electrical sense. You can get back your energy if done in a clever manner, but we typically just short them to discharge (switch) them :) So, compare the energy required to compact and extend a spring if: * You oscillate with it * You compact it, fully release it, then recompact it. This is a very apt analogy, I think, up to the mathematical level.