A Blueprint for an Optoelectronic ‘Brain’

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Building a computer that can support artificial intelligence at the scale and complexity of the human brain will be a colossal engineering effort. Now researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have outlined how they think we’ll get there. How, when, and whether we’ll ever create machines that can match our cognitive capabilities is a topic of heated debate among both computer scientists and philosophers. One of the most contentious questions is the extent to which the solution needs to mirror our best example of intelligence so far: the human brain. Rapid advances in AI powered by deep neural networks—which despite their name operate very differently than the brain—have convinced many that we may be able to achieve “artificial general intelligence” without mimicking the brain’s hardware or software. Others...

“Quantum Brain” Brings New Era of Computing Closer

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An intelligent material that learns by physically changing itself, similar to how the human brain works, could be the foundation of a completely new generation of computers. Radboud physicists working toward this so-called "quantum brain" have made an important step. They have demonstrated that they can pattern and interconnect a network of single atoms, and mimic the autonomous behaviour of neurons and synapses in a brain. They report their discovery in Nature Nanotechnology on 1 February.Considering the growing global demand for computing capacity, more and more data centres are necessary, all of which leave an ever-expanding energy footprint. 'It is clear that we have to find new strategies to store and process information in an energy efficient way', says project leader Alexander Khajetoorians, Professor of...