Real-Time Cat-Level Cortical Simulation Achieved

Posted 18 Nov 2009 at 17:28 UTC by steve

IBM announced today a new advance in the simulation of biological brains on computer hardware. As part of the DARPA SyNAPSE project, the Cognitive Computer Team at the IBM Almaden Research Center has achieved a large-scale simulation based on a new algorithm, called BlueMatter, that synthesizes neurological data.

BlueMatter, a new algorithm created in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging.

The result achieved was real-time simulation of a cat-level cortex containing 1 billion spiking neurons and 10 trilling synapses. The simulation required 147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes of memory. For more on this project, see IBM Research Center Cognitive Computing Manager Dharmendra S Modha's Cognitive Computing Blog.

The key word is SIMULATION..., posted 19 Nov 2009 at 00:30 UTC by Nelson » (Journeyer)

This is a simulation, based upon very sketchy and incomplete knowledge about exactly how the cortex operates. In addition, the rest of the brain is totally missing. Consequently, it's value is about as great as the accuracy of current wild-guess assumptions.

Henry Markram flames Modha, posted 24 Nov 2009 at 23:01 UTC by steve » (Master)

A letter from EPFL Blue Brain project leader, Henry Markram, calls the BlueMatter project's claim to cat-level cortical simulation a hoax, among other things. He also calls their claims stupid, incredible, deceptive, massively deceptive, shocking, a joke, nothing for "grown up" researcher to get excited about, ludicrous, a PR stunt, shameful, unethical, a complete waste of time, not even close to an ant's brain, and, well then it begins to get repetitive. If you'd like to read it in full, the letter can be found in the IEEE Spectrum blog.