
A novel computer architecture inspired by the working of the human brain - leephillips
http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/
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timthorn
Here's a timelapse video of the wiring of the 103,680 core SpiNNaker 105
Machine:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBB2o7Bmwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBB2o7Bmwc)

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cgio
The von Neumann architecture was also inspired by the working of the human
brain and that is why the specific terminology was used (e.g. memory.)
Apparently the perception of brain operation has changed since, as it was much
more mechanistic back then (i.e. processor.) I wonder how this compares to the
IBM's cognitive computing chips.

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jrapdx3
While I don't doubt the work is a "massively parallel computing platform",
like the IBM chips, but it's similarity or structure is at best only
tangentially reminiscent of the brain.

The little we do know about the brain, or any other part of our systems, it
functions in far more complex ways than "massively parallel" describes. In a
very sketchy way, brains work as distributed circuits of distributed circuits
built on sets of massively parallel units whose subunits are variably
interacting and in parallel with other similarly, but not identically
constructed massively parallel units.

I don't know what I said is true, but comparing human-invented devices to even
a "simple" brain is much more marketing buzzword than anything like reality.

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thibauts
I guess the system is programmable. The point is it distributes memory
accesses and computations, which should allow things which usually run slow to
run in real-time.

I'm still waiting for an architecture like a _distributed programmable memory_
rather than a distributed programmable computer. I think that's what we're
aiming for, really. AI doesn't consume CPU it consumes memory cycles.

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rbanffy
It would be really interesting to see what could be done by coupling memory
and some SIMD capability very closely. Would probably be some crazy expensive
memory, but it could be memory that offloads a lot out of the CPU.

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bruhlery
Anyone else get "Your connection is not private", when trying to download the
emulator?

under 'for developers' on
[http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/](http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/)

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meseznik
I am. Looks like a bad cert ([https://spinnaker.cs.man.ac.uk/tiki-
index.php?page=emulator](https://spinnaker.cs.man.ac.uk/tiki-
index.php?page=emulator))

