IBM today at
super computing conference SC 09 claimed significant progress
toward creating a computer system that simulates and emulates the
brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction,
and cognition in low-power form and compact size.
An IBM Research-led cognitive computing team announced it
achieved advances in large-scale cortical simulation and a new
algorithm that synthesizes neurological data.
According to IBM, these are two major milestones that indicate
the feasibility of building a cognitive computing chip.
Scientists at IBM Research - Almaden and in collaboration with
colleagues from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab said they performed
the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain that
exceeds the scale of a cat cortex and contains 1 billion spiking
neurons and 10 trillion individual learning synapses.
To perform the cortical simulation, IBM explained the team built
a cortical simulator that incorporates a number of innovations in
computation, memory, and communication as well as biological
details from neurophysiology and neuroanatomy.
The simulation was performed using the cortical simulator on
Lawrence Livermore National Lab's Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer
with 147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes of main memory.
In collaboration with researchers from Stanford University IBM
further developed an algorithm that exploits the Blue Gene
supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and
map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations
within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted
imaging.
IBM said that mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial
to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how
it represents and processes information.
IBM believes the two advancements could move its team closer to
its goal of building a compact, low-power synaptronic chip using
nanotechnology and advances in phase change memory and magnetic
tunnel junctions.
The team's work could break the mold of conventional von Neumann
computing, in order to meet the system requirements of the
instrumented and interconnected world of tomorrow, Big Blue
claimed.
"Learning from the brain is an attractive way to overcome power
and density challenges faced in computing today," said Josephine
Cheng, IBM fellow and lab director of IBM Research - Almaden, in a
statement.
"As the digital and physical worlds continue to merge and
computing becomes more embedded in the fabric of our daily lives,
it's imperative that we create a more intelligent computing system
that can help us make sense the vast amount of information that's
increasingly available to us, much the way our brains can quickly
interpret and act on complex tasks."
In recognition of their work, IBM and its university partners
have been awarded $16.1 million in additional funding from DARPA
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for the agency's
Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics
initiative.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -
Electronic News