Intel bofinom ponuja Loihi 2: 7nm čip z več kot 1 milijonom programabilnih nevronov

Robots with Intel Inside brains? That’s what Chipzilla has in mind with its Loihi 2 neuromorphic chip, which tries to mimics the human brain.

This is Intel’s stab at creating more intelligent computers that can efficiently discover patterns and associations in data and from that learn to make smarter and smarter decisions.

It’s not a processor in the traditional sense, and it’s aimed at experimentation rather than production use. As you can see from the technical brief [PDF], je sestavljen iz do 128 jeder, od katerih ima vsako do 8,192 komponent, ki delujejo kot naravni živčni nevroni, ki si pošiljajo sporočila in tvorijo nevronsko mrežo, ki se ukvarja z določeno težavo.

Jedra izvajajo tudi sinapse, ki prenašajo informacije med nevroni, od katerih lahko vsak pošilja binarne konice (1s ali 0s) ali stopnjevane konice (32-bitna vrednost koristne obremenitve).

An overview of the Loihi 2 chip architecture … Source: Intel. Click to enlarge

Each neuron can be assigned a program written using a basic instruction set to perform a task, and the whole thing is directed by six normal CPU cores that run software written in, say, C. There’s also external IO to communicate with other hardware, and interfaces to link multiple Loihi 2 chips together into a mesh as required. There are other features, such as three-factor learning rules, that you should see the technical brief for more details. The previous generation didn’t have graded spikes nor programmable neurons.

The ‘highlights’ of the Loihi 2 per-neuron instruction set … Source: Intel. Click to enlarge

There’s a race to replicate the brain electronically to run powerful AI applications quickly and without making, say, a massive dent in the electric bill. Samsung just said it wants to dal človeške možganske strukture na čipu. Tudi IBM je razvoj strojne opreme zasnovano okoli možganov.

Intel’s latest Loihi is desetkrat hitreje kot komponenta prejšnje generacije razglasitve pred štirimi leti do tega meseca, se trdi.

“Loihi 2 is currently a research chip only,” said Garrick Orchard, a research scientist at Intel Labs via email with Register. “Its core-based architecture is scalable and could enable future flavors of the chip — when the technology matures — that could have a range of commercial applications spanning data center to edge devices.”

Vsak čip Loihi 2 ima potencialno več kot milijon digitalnih nevronov, v primerjavi s 128,000 v njegovem predhodniku. Če to postavimo v kontekst, je v človeških možganih približno 90 milijard medsebojno povezanih nevronov, kar bi vam moralo dati predstavo o stopnji inteligence, ki je trenutno mogoča s to strojno opremo.

Digitalni nevroni računajo asinhrono vzporedno in jih je mogoče prilagoditi z njihovim programiranjem. Loihi 2 podpira največ 120 milijonov sinaps v primerjavi z več kot trilijoni sinaps v človeških možganih in ima 2.3 milijarde tranzistorjev v 31 mm² die area. According to Intel, its digital circuits run “up to 5000x faster than biological neurons.”

Čip je zgodnji vzorec Intel 4 manufacturing node, which is the semiconductor giant’s brand name for its much-delayed 7nm process node, and uses extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to etch the chips. Loihi 1 was made using a 14nm process.

“With Loihi 2 being fabricated with a pre-production version of the Intel 4 process, this underscores the health and progress of Intel 4,” an Intel spokeswoman told us.

Intel, by the way, showed off the wafer of Intel 4 CPU family, code-named Meteor Lake and aimed at desktops and mobile PCs, at a press event in July, the first time it had done so. Chips using that microarchitecture are expected to ship in 2023, hence Loihi 2 is a glimpse of what’s to come manufacturing-wise.

Intel sodeluje z raziskovalno skupnostjo pri pripravi aplikacij za Loihi 2. Njegov predhodnik je bil uporabljen za ustvarjajo sistemi za prepoznavanje vonjav, upravljanje robotskih rok in optimizacijo načrtovanja železniškega voznega reda.

There are no projects underway with Loihi 2 yet, though partners that worked with the original Loihi “have communicated their excitement for new capabilities within Loihi 2,” Orchard said.

One such partner is America’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is using the first-gen Loihi chip as an artificial brain to razumeli koristi spanja.

An open-source programming framework called Lava was introduced alongside Loihi 2 with which developers can write AI applications that can be implemented in the chip’s neural network. The underlying tools will also support Robotic Operating System (ROS), TensorFlow, Pytorch and other frameworks.

Ogrodje Lava je na voljo za prenesi na Githubu.

This neuromorphic hardware will be available to researchers via Intel’s Neuromorphic Research Cloud. The available components includes the Oheo Gulch board, which includes a single-socket Loihi 2 linked to an FPGA. A system code-named Kapoho Point with eight Loihi 2 chips will be available soon. ®

Vir: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/10/01/artificial_brain_intel/