XinhuaNet, a Chinese news outlet, has reported that the Chinese engineers have unveiled the world’s first neuromorphic-brain-like computer, dubbed Darwin Monkey, which, according to them, can mimic the workings of a monkey brain. The system is developed by the State Key Laboratory of Brain Machine Intelligence at Zhejiang University in Zhejiang Province, East China.
Darwin Monkey is a step forward in more advanced brain-like intelligence, as it is equipped with neuromorphic chips. The computer has 960 Darwin 3 neuromorphic computing chips, which makes it the third-generation brain-like neural processing unit. These brain-like neural processing units are independently developed by the Zhejiang lab.
The system’s chip array supports more than 2 billion pulsed neurons and 100 synapses, which helps in integrating with advanced cognitive functions. The system combines thinking abilities with vision, hearing, language, and learning. With the help of these pulsed neurons, the system can run deep and seek the brain-like large model for tasks like reasoning and content generation. It can also be used for neuroscience research.
The system is energy efficient, as it consumes 2000 watts under typical operation. It consists of 15 blade-style neuromorphic brain-like servers. Reports have also highlighted that the researchers have deployed various intelligent applications on the computer.
With this research China plays a leading role in neuromorphic research. It has also exceeded Intel’s Hala Point. Darwin Monkey thus plays a significant role in large-scale brain-like model computing.