Intel Scales Neuromorphic Research System to 100 Million Neurons
March 18 2020 - 10:15AM
Business Wire
What’s New: Today, Intel announced the readiness of
Pohoiki Springs, its latest and most powerful neuromorphic research
system providing the computational capacity of 100 million neurons.
The cloud-based system will be made available to members of the
Intel Neuromorphic Research Community (INRC), extending their
neuromorphic work to solve larger, more complex problems.
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A close-up shows an Intel Nahuku board,
each of which contains eight to 32 Intel Loihi neuromorphic
research chips. Intel’s latest neuromorphic computing system,
Pohoiki Springs, was unveiled in March 2020. It is made up of 24
Nahuku boards with 32 chips each, integrating a total of 768 Loihi
chips. (Credit: Tim Herman/Intel Corporation)
“Pohoiki Springs scales up our Loihi neuromorphic research chip
by more than 750 times, while operating at a power level of under
500 watts. The system enables our research partners to explore ways
to accelerate workloads that run slowly today on conventional
architectures, including high-performance computing (HPC) systems.”
–Mike Davies, director of Intel’s Neuromorphic Computing Lab
What It is: Pohoiki Springs is a data center rack-mounted
system and is Intel’s largest neuromorphic computing system
developed to date. It integrates 768 Loihi neuromorphic research
chips inside a chassis the size of five standard servers.
Loihi processors take inspiration from the human brain. Like the
brain, Loihi can process certain demanding workloads up to 1,000
times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than conventional
processors. Pohoiki Springs is the next step in scaling this
architecture to assess its potential to solve not just artificial
intelligence (AI) problems, but a wide range of computationally
difficult problems. Intel researchers believe the extreme
parallelism and asynchronous signaling of neuromorphic systems may
provide significant performance gains at dramatically reduced power
levels compared with the most advanced conventional computers
available today.
What the Opportunity for Scale is: In the natural world
even some of the smallest living organisms can solve remarkably
hard computational problems. Many insects, for example, can
visually track objects and navigate and avoid obstacles in real
time, despite having brains with well under 1 million neurons.
Similarly, Intel’s smallest neuromorphic system, Kapoho Bay,
comprises two Loihi chips with 262,000 neurons and supports a
variety of real-time edge workloads. Intel and INRC researchers
have demonstrated the ability for Loihi to recognize gestures in
real time, read braille using novel artificial skin, orient
direction using learned visual landmarks and learn new odor
patterns – all while consuming tens of milliwatts of power. These
small-scale examples have so far shown excellent scalability, with
larger problems running faster and more efficiently on Loihi
compared with conventional solutions. This mirrors the scalability
of brains found in nature, from insects to human brains.
With 100 million neurons, Pohoiki Springs increases Loihi’s
neural capacity to the size of a small mammal brain, a major step
on the path to supporting much larger and more sophisticated
neuromorphic workloads. The system lays the foundation for an
autonomous, connected future, which will require new approaches to
real-time, dynamic data processing.
How It will be Used: Intel’s neuromorphic systems, such
as Pohoiki Springs, are still in the research phase and are not
intended to replace conventional computing systems. Instead, they
provide a tool for researchers to develop and characterize new
neuro-inspired algorithms for real-time processing, problem
solving, adaptation and learning. INRC members will access and
build applications on Pohoiki Springs via the cloud using Intel’s
Nx SDK and community-contributed software components.
Examples of promising, highly scalable algorithms being
developed for Loihi include:
- Constraint satisfaction: Constraint satisfaction
problems are present everywhere in the real world, from the game of
sudoku to airline scheduling, to package delivery planning. They
require evaluating a large number of potential solutions to
identify the one or few that satisfy specific constraints. Loihi
can accelerate such problems by exploring many different solutions
in parallel at high speed.
- Searching graphs and patterns: Every day, people search
graph-based data structures to find optimal paths and closely
matching patterns, for example to obtain driving directions or to
recognize faces. Loihi has shown the ability to rapidly identify
the shortest paths in graphs and perform approximate image
searches.
- Optimization problems: Neuromorphic architectures can be
programmed so that their dynamic behavior over time mathematically
optimizes specific objectives. This behavior may be applied to
solve real-world optimization problems, such as maximizing the
bandwidth of a wireless communication channel or allocating a stock
portfolio to minimize risk at a target rate of return.
About Neuromorphic Computing: Traditional general-purpose
processors, like CPUs and GPUs, are particularly skilled at tasks
that are difficult for humans, such as highly precise mathematical
calculations. But the role and applications of technology are
expanding. From automation to AI and beyond, there is a rising need
for computers to operate more like humans, processing unstructured
and noisy data in real time, while adapting to change. This
challenge motivates new and specialized architectures.
Neuromorphic computing is a complete rethinking of computer
architecture from the bottom up. The goal is to apply the latest
insights from neuroscience to create chips that function less like
traditional computers and more like the human brain. Neuromorphic
systems replicate the way neurons are organized, communicate and
learn at the hardware level. Intel sees Loihi and future
neuromorphic processors defining a new model of programmable
computing to serve the world’s rising demand for pervasive,
intelligent devices.
More Context: Neuromorphic Computing (Press Kit) | Intel
Labs (Press Kit)
About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating
world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches
lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the
design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our
customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the
cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash
the potential of data to transform business and society for the
better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to
newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks
are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other
names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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Alexa Korkos 415-706-5783 alexa.korkos@intel.com
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