IBM Demonstrates Neural Net Chip With Pong AI

A new computer chip now being developed by IBM emulates the structure of the human brain to achieve artificial intelligence and machine learning goals, including teaching a computer to win at Pong. As reported by EETimes, the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) chip uses a crossbar array of digital synapses to simulate the human brain, which distributes processing work across synapses as they overload, strengthening those used most often and letting unused pathways wither. IBM is currently partway through work on a $41 million development contract with the U.S. Army's DARPA that seeks to create a 10 billion neuron, 100 trillion synapse cognitive computer, that would mimic the human brain in power and size. But a smaller prototype being shown now, only 4 square millimeters in area, uses a few million transistors to perform simple machine learning tasks, including cursive handwriting recognition and a self-generated strategy to win at Pong. Researchers hope the full chip will help with complex problems such as machine vision, pattern recognition and classification.