IBM and the US Air Force have announced that they're teaming up to build a unique supercomputer based on IBM's TrueNorth neuromorphic architecture. The new supercomputer will consist of 64 million neurons and 16 billion synapses, while using just 10W of wall power. IBM's TrueNorth project is an attempt to build a neuromorphic, or brain-like CPU directly in hardware. The goal is to design superior neural nets and create artificial intelligence in power envelopes that could conceivably operate outside of data centers or fixed installations.
IBM is claiming that the TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System (that's the official moniker) can convert and process data from multiple sources in parallel, while simultaneously pairing with more conventional processors to analyze the data.
The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) was the earliest adopter of TrueNorth for converting data into decisions, said Daniel S. Goddard, director, information directorate, U.S. Air Force Research Lab. "The new neurosynaptic system will be used to enable new computing capabilities important to AFRL's mission to explore, prototype, and demonstrate high-impact, game-changing technologies that enable the Air Force and the nation to maintain its superior technical advantage," he said in a statement.
The new system will fit in a 4U standard server rack with 512 million neurons in total per rack. IBM claims this represents an 800-percent annual increase over the last six years, as the first systems contained just 256 neurons.