Lawrence Livermore, IBM Develop Brain-inspired Supercomputer

LIVERMORE, Calif. and ARMONK, N.Y. - 29 Mar 2016: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) today announced it has purchased a first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing platform for deep learning inference developed by IBM (NYSE: IBM) Research. Based on a breakthrough neurosynaptic computer chip called IBM TrueNorth, the scalable platform will process the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses and consume the energy equivalent of a tablet computer – a mere 2.5 watts of power for the 16 TrueNorth chips. The brain-like, neural network design of the IBM Neuromorphic System is able to infer complex cognitive tasks such as pattern recognition and integrated sensory processing far more efficiently than conventional chips. "Neuromorphic computing opens very exciting new possibilities and is consistent with what we see as the future of the high performance computing and simulation at the heart of our national security missions," said Jim Brase, LLNL deputy associate director for Data Science. "The potential capabilities neuromorphic computing represents and the machine intelligence that these will enable will change how we do science."