Intel plans to make its digital brain chip, code-named Loihi, available to researchers in 2018, in a bid to put its hardware into cutting-edge AI applications. Will your PC be next?
Intel is reportedly preparing to fabricate “Loihi,” a self-learning “brain chip” that mimics how the human intellect functions, as a foundation for further developments in artificial intelligence. Named after an active undersea volcano south of the island of Hawaii, Intel said in a statement Monday that Loihi includes a total of 130,000 silicon “neurons” connected with 130 million “synapses,” the junctions that in humans connect the neurons within the brain. The Loihi chip, which Wiredreported will be manufactured next month on Intel’s 14-nm process technology, will be shared with leading universities and research institutions next year in a bid to advance AI development, Intel said.
Coincidentally, Microsoft said that it, too, is working on ways to develop new avenues for alternative computing, including manufacturing actual chips and systems, as well as developing software to power quantum computers. Intel’s Loihi doesn’t employ quantum techniques, but it has a similar goal: Instead of trying to “brute force” its way into a solution, as traditional chips do, Loihi tries to mimic the parallel structure of the human brain to arrive at those same answers much more efficiently.
Intel said it believes the Loihi chip could be used autonomously, A Loihi-powered medical device, for example, could determine what a “normal” heart rate was and therefore be able to figure out when an abnormal heart condition presented itself. Intel emphasized that its chip is intended to “self-learn,” teaching itself the answers to problems, using its digital array of synthetic neurons and synapses. Each “neuromorphic core” includes a learning engine that can be programmed to adapt. “As AI workloads grow more diverse and complex, they will test the limits of today’s dominant compute architectures and precipitate new disruptive approaches,” Michael Mayberry, corporate vice president and managing director of Intel Labs, wrote in a blog post.
Via
Dr. Stefan Gruenwald
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