New brain-inspired chip makes computers think like humans

The future generation of computer chips will think like the human brain.

The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) released the initial prototype of their brain-inspired computer chip, SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) three years ago.

Now a new production-ready chip has emerged that dwarfs its predecessor, reported engadget.

The newest chip has 1 million neurons, 256 million synapses and 4096 neuro-synaptic cores. It runs on 70mW of power, so little that it can be run on a hearing aid’s battery.

IBM plans to meld the capabilities of a neuro-synaptic approach to computing, where chips address the senses and use pattern recognition, together with more traditional views of computing that uses language and analytical thinking. Cognitive computing aims to emulate the human brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition.

“The architecture can solve a wide class of problems from vision, audition, and multi-sensory fusion, and has the potential to revolutionise the computer industry by integrating brain-like capability into devices where computation is constrained by power and speed,” said Dharmendra Modha, an IBM Fellow.