system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How is the breakthrough of the IBM 7nm chip is going to change technology and why it is important.
gpt
Computers calculate by turning a series of switches on and off in various patterns.

If a computer has more switches, it can perform more calculations.

But the bigger the switches are, the more power it takes to turn these switches off and on. 

The more power it takes, the hotter it becomes, the more complicated the way these switches cooling has to be, etc.

So people make the switches smaller to put more switches on a computer on the same space to make a computer faster. That is why computers today are so much faster than in our fathers time, while they have become smaller. 

The 7 nm process can be used puts the double number of switches that your computer today has in the same space. So it will take so much less energy to run so much more faster.