IBM Unveils Cognitive Computing Chips – SyNAPSE Processors That Think
Today, IBM researchers unveiled a new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brains abilities for perception, action and cognition. The technology could yield many orders of magnitude less power consumption and space than used in todays computers. In a sharp departure from traditional concepts in designing and building computers, IBMs first neurosynaptic computing chips recreate the phenomena between spiking neurons and synapses in biological systems, such as the brain, through advanced algorithms and silicon circuitry. Its first two prototype chips have already been fabricated and are currently undergoing testing. Called cognitive computers, systems built with these chips wont 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. I remember when this project started back in 2008 and was funded by DARPA. You can see IBM’s Cognitive Computing Chip, at about 3-mm wide, in the image below. This little processor has already demonstrated the ability to play (and win) against a human in the game “Pong” and can also read a written letter 7, even when written in various ways.
This is a major initiative to move beyond the von Neumann paradigm that has been ruling computer architecture for more than half a century, said Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research. Future applications of computing will increasingly demand functionality that is not efficiently delivered by the traditional architecture. These chips are another significant step in the evolution of computers from calculators to learning systems, signaling the beginning of a new generation of computers and their applications in business, science and government.
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