IBM designs a chip with human brain’s capabilities of cognition and perception

IBM has developed a chip that behaves like human brain. The chip is meant to emulate human brain’s activities different from a conventional chip. That means the IBM chip will work with human brain’s sensitivities like perception and cognition. In fact, the technology puts an end for researchers’ long search to develop a chip that can perform like human brain different from the way a programmed mechanical chip works.

IBM Cognitive Chip

The American technology company has displayed two prototype chips that can respond to the information and data almost similar to human brain. This is what makes the technology a notable advancement, indeed. The cognitive chip will be a huge development in the computer industry. Since the chip will work like human brain, the tasks it can do in a stipulated time will multiply. The chip will perform greatly faster than traditional chips in processing the data.

It will be a groundbreaking development that the chip will work not on programmed functionalities. Discerning power of the new chip will open way for more technological innovations, says Giulio Tononi, a psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. However, Mr. Tononi, who worked with the coveted IBM project, adds that the technology is in its infancy. Many more things are to be done for the full-fledged functioning of the chip.

Development of the chip means we are moving ahead to feel what we can call a cognitive or perceptive computing. What is spectacular here is that computers will be able to do unexpected tasks. As of now, the chips inside our computers respond to the actions that are pre-programmed. In other words, traditional chips work based on the programmed tasks that the chips are expected to do for each command.

And so, the IBM chips will be able to work in accordance with the real-world signals, which can be temperature, sound, motion, sense or anything like that. In succinct, the auto-response feature makes the chip a better alternative in advanced applications. Parts of the cognitive chips from IBM do have 'neurons' and 'synapses' that make it a chip with some intelligence, says Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research.

The research for the chip was a six year program. More than 100 researchers were involved in the project that cost millions of dollars. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded $41 million for the landmark project. IBM also added some amount of money that the company did not disclose.

Via: DailyMail