IBM announced this week that it has a computer system that can simulate the thinking power of a cat's brain with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses. At just 4.5 percent of a human brain, the computer can sense, perceive, act, interact and process ideas without consuming a lot energy. Being able to mimic the low-energy, high-processing capability of a brain is something researchers have been striving to achieve in computing for years.
By combining the cat-brain-sized computer system with a special algorithm, called Blue Matter (photo), that maps the human brain, the scientists are able to test how brain structure affects function. Eventually, they hope to uncover how the human brain’s circuits can perform small and large computations, and then use that information build a chip that has a brain-like architecture.
Photo: IBM
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