IBMが神経細胞のネットワークを模した、低電力で駆動する新たなコンピュータチップを開発しました。100万個の「神経細胞」と、神経細胞同士の結合部分である「シナプス」を2億5千6百万個備えたものです。

サイエンス論文の筆頭著者の二人が、新しいコンピュータチップ開発の動機を解説している動画。
SyNAPSE: IBM Cognitive Computing Project – Hardware

A Cognitive Information Superhighway

”IBM’s brain-inspired architecture consists of a network of neurosynaptic cores. Cores are distributed and operate in parallel. Cores operate—without a clock—in an event-driven fashion. Cores integrate memory, computation, and communication. Individual cores can fail and yet, like the brain, the architecture can still function. Cores on the same chip communicate with one another via an on-chip event-driven network. Chips communicate via an inter-chip interface leading to seamless scalability like the cortex, enabling creation of scalable neuromorphic systems.”（http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/neurosynaptic-chips.shtml#fbid=15Zz4zjXf0H）

Bringing Computing to the Data

”A video camera on Hoover Tower at Stanford University is looking down at the plaza, below. A simulated network of IBM TrueNorth chips takes in the video data and locates interesting objects. Objects might look interesting to the system because they are moving or have a different color or texture than the background. The system then further processes those portions of the interesting video to determine what the objects are. It is trained in several specific categories, such as buses, cars, people, and cyclists. In a monitoring application, the camera would only need to communicate when it found an interesting object, rather than continually streaming video to a central location.”（http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/neurosynaptic-chips.shtml#fbid=15Zz4zjXf0H）

参考

1. Paul A. Merolla, John V. Arthur, Rodrigo Alvarez-Icaza, Andrew S. Cassidy, Jun Sawada, Filipp Akopyan, Bryan L. Jackson, et al. A million spiking-neuron integrated circuit with a scalable communication network and interface. Science 8 August 2014.
   Vol. 345 no. 6197 pp. 668-673. DOI: 10.1126/science.1254642
2. New IBM SyNAPSE Chip Could Open Era of Vast Neural Networks (IBM News release San Jose, CA. – 07 Aug 2014)
3. 新しいIBM SyNAPSEチップを発表 （日本IBMプレスリリース2014年8月8日）
4. IBM社が世界最大規模の脳型半導体チップを開発、100万個のニューロンと2.56億個のシナプスを実装（日経テクノロジーオンライン 2014年8月8日）
5. 米IBM、人間の脳のように動くチップ「SyNAPSE」を開発 （マイナナビニュース 2014/08/08）”..「SyNAPSE」は、2011年に開発された初期プロトタイプの第2世代目となり、サムスン電子製の54億個のトランジスタを土台に、100万個のプログラム可能なニューロンと2億5,600万個のプログラム可能なシナプスで構成される。..”
6. DARPA SyNAPSE Program (artificialbrains.com　Jan 11, 2013):” SyNAPSE is a DARPA-funded program to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that scales to biological levels. More simply stated, it is an attempt to build a new kind of computer with similar form and function to the mammalian brain. Such artificial brains would be used to build robots whose intelligence matches that of mice and cats.　SyNAPSE is a backronym standing for Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics. It started in 2008 and as of January 2013 has received $102.6 million in funding. It is scheduled to run until around 2016. The project is primarily contracted to IBM and HRL who in turn subcontract parts of the research to various US universities. ..”
7. Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE)　（darpa.mil): “The vision for the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program is to develop low-power electronic neuromorphic computers that scale to biological levels. ..”
8. SyNAPSE (en.wikipedia.org)

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