Brain chips being pursued by IBM

Computers have certainly come a long way since it was first unleashed upon the world, and IBM has been a name associated with computers for as long as I can remember. Well, the company is now working on a couple of prototype chips that is said to be able to process data in a rather similar manner as that of how humans actually digest information compared to the kind of chips that are found inside today’s desktops and supercomputers.

The six-year long project involved a hundred researchers with $41 million in funding from the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). No idea on how much IBM has thrown into the endeavor, but if the prototypes actually work, it underlines the growing importance of “parallel processing,” which is to have computers perform multiple tasks all at once. This is useful when it comes to performing tasks such as rendering graphics and crunching large amounts of data.

The chips’ feature the ability to adapt to different types of information which it wasn’t originally programmed to expect. Whatever it is, the computer that has the power of the human brain is nowhere near, but the latest development is certainly an encouraging one.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: ibm, Processors