World’s Largest Brain-like Computer

(South China Morning Post, September 03, 2020)

A group of scientists in China say they have created the world’s largest brain-like computer by number of neurons. Darwin Mouse has 120 million artificial neurons and 100 billion synapses – equivalent to the brain of a mouse. The team responsible for the computer from Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Lab officially unveiled it on September 1. Darwin Mouse is said to run on 792 chips that host millions of artificial neurons needed to mimic nerve cells found in real brains. Neuromorphic computing is a nascent discipline in computer science. Neuromorphic literally means “taking the form of the brain.” In this case, that means trying to get computers to imitate the fine-tuned physiological structure that allows us to process information by using neurons, synapses, neural circuits and more.