IBM Seeks to Build Computer Based on Brain
November 25th 2008 19:29
Signature Tune
From: Manufacturing business technology
IBM Research and five universities are partnering to create computing systems that are expected to simulate and emulate the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition while rivaling its low power consumption and compact size.
The digital data explosion shows no signs of slowing down -- according to analyst firm IDC, the amount of digital data is growing at 60 percent each year, giving businesses access to incredible new streams of information. But without the ability to monitor, analyze and react to this information in real-time, the majority of its value may be lost. Until the data is captured and analyzed, decisions or actions may be delayed. Cognitive computing offers the promise of systems that can integrate and analyze vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, allowing businesses or individuals to make rapid decisions in time to have an impact.
By seeking inspiration from the structure, dynamics, function, and behavior of the brain, the IBM-led cognitive computing research team aims to break the conventional programmable machine paradigm. Ultimately, the team hopes to rival the brain's low power consumption and small size by using nanoscale devices for synapses and neurons. This technology stands to bring about entirely new computing architectures and programming paradigms. The end goal: ubiquitously deployed computers imbued with a new intelligence that can integrate information from a variety of sensors and sources, deal with ambiguity, respond in a context-dependent way, learn over time and carry out pattern recognition to solve difficult problems based on perception, action and cognition in complex, real-world environments.
IBM and its collaborators have been awarded $4.9 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the first phase of DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative. IBM's proposal, "Cognitive Computing via Synaptronics and Supercomputing (C2S2)," outlines research over the next nine months in areas including synaptronics, material science, neuromorphic circuitry, supercomputing simulations and virtual environments. Initial research will focus on demonstrating nanoscale, low power synapse-like devices and on uncovering the functional microcircuits of the brain. The long-term mission of C2S2 is to demonstrate low-power, compact cognitive computers that approach mammalian-scale intelligence.
"Exploratory research is in the fabric of IBM's DNA," said Josephine Cheng, IBM Fellow and vice president of IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose. "We believe that our cognitive computing initiative will help shape the future of computing in a significant way, bringing to bear new technologies that we haven't even begun to imagine. The initiative underscores IBM's capabilities in bold, exploratory research and interest in powerful collaborations to understand the way the world works."
IBM has assembled a multi-dimensional, integrated team of researchers and collaborators led by Dr. Dharmendra Modha, manager of IBM's cognitive computing initiative, to take on the challenge including Stanford University (Professors Kwabena Boahen, H. Phillip Wong, Brian Wandell), University of Wisconsin-Madison (Professor Gulio Tononi), Cornell University (Professor Rajit Manohar), Columbia University Medical Center (Professor Stefano Fusi) and University of California-Merced (Professor Christopher Kello). IBM Researchers include Dr. Stuart Parkin, Dr. Chung Lam, Dr. Bulent Kurdi, Dr. J. Campbell Scott, Dr. Paul Maglio, Dr. Simone Raoux, Dr. Rajagopal Ananthanarayanan, Dr. Raghav Singh, and Dr. Bipin Rajendran.
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