IBM plans to build virtual human brain

Posted at: 3:27pm 21st November 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Cognitive computing project plans to use nanoscale devices as virtual neurons and synapses

Robots and computers that think like humans have traditionally been confined to sci-fi worlds such as those in ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Red Dwarf’, but IBM reckons that a real-time computer simulation of the human brain isn’t out of the question. In fact, the company has just announced that it’s embarking on a project to ‘simulate and emulate the brain’s abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition.’

In conjunction with five universities, the company that brought us the PC standard has formed a cognitive computing project, claiming that although the amount of data storage is increasing every year, the ability to interpret that data in a quick and useful way is lacking. ‘Without the ability to monitor, analyse and react to this information in real-time,’ says IBM, ‘the majority of its value may be lost.’

IBM says that its new AI project will be ‘seeking inspiration from the structure, dynamics, function, and behaviour of the brain,’ and that it’s aiming to ‘break the conventional programmable machine paradigm.’ The virtual brain, if it’s successfully developed, will feature virtual synapses and neurons in the form of nanoscale devices.

Of course, even basic brains are intensely complicated, and although IBM recently simulated a small mammal brain in near real-time earlier this year, the computer required was the Blue Gene supercomputer. However, IBM says that it can use this simulation capacity to experiment with ‘various mathematical hypotheses of brain function and structure’ in order to work towards ‘discovering the brain’s core computational micro and macro circuits.’

The objective of the project, according to IBM, is to make the technology ubiquitous in the future. As a result, the company hopes that future computers will be ‘imbued with a new intelligence that can integrate information from a variety of sensors and sources.’ As such, IBM hopes that they’ll be able to ‘deal with ambiguity, respond in a context-dependent way, learn over time and carry out pattern recognition to solve difficult problems based on perception, action and cognition in complex, real-world environments.’

Josephine Cheng, vice president of IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, said that ‘we believe that our cognitive computing initiative will help shape the future of computing in a significant way, bringing to bear new technologies that we haven’t even begun to imagine.’ IBM has also released a short video that explains the project, which you can see on the next page.