….and human beings are getting closer to making computers that mimic the human brain.
IBM has taken a giant step foward toward its goal of creating a processor chip that acts like a human brain, creating a second, more advanced one that tries to duplicate the way the human brain operates. With this, it has moved that much more further into ultimately developing artificial intelligence, feel many.
IBM Research has released the latest SyNAPSE chip on August 7, 2014. So, what exactly is this cognitive chip all about? Says IBM Research: (This chip) has the potential to transform mobility by spurring innovation around an entirely new class of applications with sensory capabilities at incredibly low power levels. This is enabled by an revolutionary new technology design inspired by the human brain.
IBM built the chip with a brain-inspired computer architecture powered by an unprecedented 1 million neurons and 256 million synapses. It is the largest chip IBM has ever built at 5.4 billion transistors, and has an on-chip network of 4,096 neurosynaptic cores. Yet, it only consumes 70mW during real-time operation — orders of magnitude less energy than traditional chips. As part of a complete cognitive hardware and software ecosystem, this technology opens new computing frontiers for distributed sensor and supercomputing applications.
Researchers from Cornell Tech helped design this chip as well. Here’s how the researchers describe the chip in this week’s issue of the Science Journal: The architecture is well suited to many applications that use complex neural networks in real time, for example, multiobject detection and classification. With 400-pixel-by-240-pixel video input at 30 frames per second, the chip consumes 63 milliwatts. Indeed, experts say the chip would be an ideal fit for the Internet of Things (IoT). IBM Research itself says such a brain-inspired chip could transform mobility and the IoT through sensory perception.
Fundamentally, while the usual computer chips run all the time, this new chip will only operate when it needs to, resulting in a cooler working environ, requiring low energy needs.
Once commercialized, such a chip could act as a low-power sensor for a range of embedded and portable devices. The new processor, code-named “TrueNorth,” has 5.4 billion transistors woven into an on-chip network of 4,096 neurosynaptic cores. IBM has also tethered 16 of these chips together in four, four-by-four arrays, which collectively offer the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses, showing that the design can be easily scaled up for larger implementations.
Programming this new architecture requires a fundamentally new way of thinking, so IBM Research has built SyNAPSE University for the same.
Cognitive Computing
Cognitive computing systems learn and interact naturally with people to extend what either humans or machine could do on their own. They help human experts make better decisions by penetrating the complexity of Big Data.
Image Credit: IBM Research
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