IBM's Synapse chip
Over the years, we all have seen how technology has improved people's lives in many ways. How technology is injected in our lives, but what if a part of us is integrated into technology? Till now we have seen Robots doing human tasks like cleaning the house..... but what if computers could also think like humans? Be able to asses things, adapt to situations, solve problems etc. Its awesome, right? Yes, and that was a idea IBM had in mind when they started the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project in November 2008.
This was a six year long project and it has involved 100 researchers in the project.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initially invested $4.9 million to the project, and has just added another $21 million for the production of a computer chip that functions much like the brain totally it was $41 million funding from the government's (DARPA). This neurosynaptic chip is said to require less power and will take up less space. And there are already 2 prototypes undergoing testing. IBM aims to arm it with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses that only consumes 1 kilowatt of power and takes up less than two liters of space.
The chips imitate the spiking neurons and synapses of the brain through advanced algorithms and silicon circuitry. It has a ‘neurosynaptic core’ with integrated memory (replicated synapses), computation (replicated neurons) and communication (replicated axons). The goal is to create a system that rewires itself as it interacts with a particular environment.
This was a six year long project and it has involved 100 researchers in the project.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initially invested $4.9 million to the project, and has just added another $21 million for the production of a computer chip that functions much like the brain totally it was $41 million funding from the government's (DARPA). This neurosynaptic chip is said to require less power and will take up less space. And there are already 2 prototypes undergoing testing. IBM aims to arm it with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses that only consumes 1 kilowatt of power and takes up less than two liters of space.
The chips imitate the spiking neurons and synapses of the brain through advanced algorithms and silicon circuitry. It has a ‘neurosynaptic core’ with integrated memory (replicated synapses), computation (replicated neurons) and communication (replicated axons). The goal is to create a system that rewires itself as it interacts with a particular environment.
“Imagine traffic lights that can integrate sights, sounds and smells and flag unsafe intersections before disaster happens or imagine cognitive co-processors that turn servers, laptops, tablets, and phones into machines that can interact better with their environments,” said Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research.
IBM Researchers on Thursday unveiled a new generation of experimental computer chips "designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition." IBM said in a statement that researchers had created the basic design of the first neurosynaptic computing chip that recreated the phenomena between spiking neurons and synapses in a biological system, such as the brain.
Using digital silicon circuits inspired by neurobiology, the cognitive chips contain no biological elements. The two chips, called 'core,' have successfully demonstrated simple applications like navigation, machine vision, pattern recognition, associative memory and classification.
IBM had a press release on this thursday:
IBM had a press release on this thursday:
Called cognitive computers, systems built with these chips won’t be programmed the same way traditional computers are today. Rather, cognitive computers are expected to learn through experiences, find correlations, create hypotheses, and remember – and learn from – the outcomes, mimicking the brains structural and synaptic plasticity.
The chips are the result of a multi-year initiative combining principles of nanoscience, neuroscience and supercomputing.
Great! ...In a few years, I'll be able to get a couple of chips to replace the failing areas of our brain. This chip is creating a new dilemma, human with a robot brain or robot with a human brain.........
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