Overview of Brain-inspired Supercomputer TrueNorth
Brian Van Essen, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Wed 11:30am – 12:15pm
Based on a breakthrough neurosynaptic architecture, called IBM TrueNorth, we explore the possibilities of a brain-inspired scalable HPC platform that proposes to combine traditional HPC architectures with an IBM NS16e TrueNorth processor array that scales up to 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses, while consuming the energy equivalent of a hearing aid battery — a mere 2.5 watts of power. Neuromorphic architectures can help accelerate the path to exascale computing by enabling computers to tackle complex cognitive tasks such as pattern recognition and integrated sensory processing far more efficiently that conventional chips. The potential capabilities that neuromorphic computing represents and the machine intelligence that these will enable will change how we do science.