IBM: Microchips closer to Human Brain

International Business Machines (IBM) has recently announced that it has created microchips that are closer to human brain. IBM claims that these microchips can copy human brain’s aptitude to comprehend its natives, respond on the things that are occurring around it and to recognize difficult/complex data.

IBM was founded on June 16, 1911 in Endicott, New York. It is a world-renowned company famous for making hardware and software devices for computers. The development of these microchips is a big step forward in the field of IT.

The computers require programming language to understand the human commands and to act on things. Since the past half-century the working of computers is based on programming. A new generation of computers called “cognitive computers,” will be developed from these microchips. Based on their experiences they will construct their own concepts about what those incidents mean. These microprocessors are the fruit of a project called SyNAPSE (Systemsof Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics). The prototypes of these chips are made. These tiny brains will develop “reasoning” in the computers. In terms of artificial intelligence, we can say that they will think over every happening and every question asked from the computer. They will not simply respond on the information that has been pre-programmed or embedded in them. According to IBM:

"Imagine traffic lights that can integrate sights, sounds and smells and flag unsafe intersections before disaster happens," said Dharmendra Modha, the project head for IBM Research. "Or imagine cognitive co-processors that turn servers, laptops, tablets and phones into machines that can interact better with their environments."

Theories and principles from nanoscience, neuroscience and supercomputing are being used in the development of these micro-processors. These micro-chips contain no biological rudiments. They contain digital silicon circuits and contain “neurosynaptic core” with integrated memory (replicated synapses), computation (replicated neurons) and communication (replicated axons). Two prototype designs are made by IBM that were made in 45 nm SOI-CMOS and include 256 neurons. one micro-processor contains 262,144 programmable synapses and the second one contains 65,536 learning synapses.

These micro-chips are being made in Fishkill, New York. Their testing is being done in the research labs of San Jose and New York.