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Science & Tech.
Pradeep Kumar

01/06/21 10:25 AM IST

Artificial Synaptic Network

In news

Scientists have fabricated a device that can mimic human brain cognitive actions and is more efficient than conventional techniques in emulating artificial intelligence

AI
  • Artificial intelligence is now a part of our daily lives, starting from email filters and smart replies in communication to helping battle the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • But AI can do much more such as facilitate self-driving autonomous vehicles, augmented reality for healthcare, drug discovery, big data handling, real-time pattern/image recognition, solving real-world problems, and so on.
  • These can be realised with the help of a neuromorphic device which can mimic the human brain synapse to bring about brain-inspired efficient computing ability. 
Human Brain
  • The human brain comprises of nearly a hundred billion neurons consisting of axons and dendrites.
  • These neurons massively interconnect with each other via axons and dendrites, forming colossal junctions called synapse.
  • This complex bio-neural network is believed to give rise to superior cognitive abilities.
  • Software-based artificial neural networks (ANN) can be seen defeating humans in games (AlphaGo and AlphaZero) or helping handle the Covid-19 situation. 
Issue
  • The power-hungry (in megawatts) von Neumann computer architecture slows down ANNs performance due to the available serial processing while the brain does the job via parallel processing consuming just 20 W. 
  • It is estimated that the brain consumes 20% of the total body energy. From the calory conversion, it amounts to 20 watts.
  • While the conventional computing platforms consume megawatts, i.e., 10 lakh watts of energy, to mimic basic human cognition.
Solutions

A hardware-based solution involves an artificial synaptic device that, unlike transistors, could emulate the functions of human brain synapse.

Source: PIB

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