IBM Research has created programming software for its experimental brain chips.
Big Blue’s researchers in San Jose, Calif., have created what they
call a “breakthrough software ecosystem” designed for programming chips
whose architecture has been inspired by the way the brain functions. The
chips function on low power and are good at applications that the brain
can handle, like perception, action, and cognition.
The software is dramatically different from traditional software. IBM
says its new programming model breaks the model of sequential operation
that traces its roots back to the John von Neumann architecture created
in the 1940s. Instead of handling one instruction at a time, IBM’s new
model is tailored for doing lots of things at once. The new model is
made for distributed, highly interconnected, asynchronous, parallel, and
large-scale cognitive computing architectures.
“Architectures and programs are closely intertwined and a new
architecture necessitates a new programming paradigm,” said Dharmendra
Modha, principal Investigator and senior manager at IBM Research. “We
are working to create a FORTRAN for cognitive computing chips. While
complementing today’s computers, this will bring forth a fundamentally
new technological capability in terms of programming and applying
emerging cognitive systems.”
IBM announced its new brain-like computer chips in 2011. But to make
use of them, it has to create software that programmers will use to
program the new chips. IBM believes that these brain-like computers will
be better at tasks such as vision and perception, at least in
comparison to “number cruncher” von Neumann computers that are the
foundation of all of today’s major computing architectures, such as
Intel’s x86 architecture. IBM says that the brain-like computers can get
a lot more work done simultaneously, without using too much power.
Working on a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), IBM demonstrated working chips based on the new
technology. More than $53 million has been poured into it so far.
IBM researchers developed a number of breakthroughs aimed at making
brain-like computing easier. They created a simulator to demonstrate
multi-threaded, massively parallel, and highly scalable software running
on a network of brain-like cores known as Synapse processors. IBM’s
long-term goal is to build a chip system with ten billion neurons and
hundred trillion synapses, while consuming merely one kilowatt of power
and occupying less than two liters of volume.
The software follows a neuron-like model. It is a simple, digital,
highly parameterized spiking neuron model. A network of such neurons can
sense, remember, and act upon a variety of programming inputs. The
programming model simplifies this complex structure, creating a
high-level description that is based on composable and reusable building
blocks called “corelets.” Each corelet is a blueprint of a network of
neurons. The inner workings of the neuron are hidden from the
programmer, who only sees its external inputs and outputs. So the
programmer can focus on what the neuron does, rather than how it does
it. Corelets are hierarchical. They can be used to create new corelets
that are more complex.
The researchers have created more than 150 corelets already as part
of a library that programmers can tap. IBM is presenting the programming
model at the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks.
By: Dean Takahashi
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