Intel unveils largest-ever AI 'neuromorphic computer' that mimics the human brain

Scientists at Intel have built the world's largest neuromorphic computer, or one designed and structured to mimic the human brain. The company hopes it will support future artificial intelligence (AI) research.

The machine, dubbed "Hala Point," can perform AI workloads 50 times faster and use 100 times less energy than conventional computing systems that use central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), Intel representatives said in a statement. These figures are based on findings uploaded March 18 to the preprint server IEEE Explore, which have not been peer-reviewed.

Hala Point will initially be deployed at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, where scientists will use it to tackle problems in device physics, computing architecture and computer science.

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Powered by 1,152 of Intel's new Loihi 2 processors — a neuromorphic research chip — this large-scale system comprises 1.15 billion artificial neurons and 128 billion artificial synapses distributed over 140,544 processing cores.

It can make 20 quadrillion operations per second — or 20 Petaops. Neuromorphic computers process data differently from supercomputers, so it's hard to compare them. But Trinity, the 38th most powerful supercomputer in the world boasts approximately 20 PetaFLOPS of power — where a FLOP is a floating-point operation per second. The world's most powerful supercomputer is Frontier, which boasts a performance of 1.2 exaFLOPS, or 1,194 PetaFLOPS.

How neuromorphic computing works

Neuromorphic computing differs from conventional computing because of its architecture, Prasanna Date, a computer scientist with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), wrote on ResearchGate. These types of computers use neural networks to build the machine.