Intel unveils Pohoiki Beach, its latest neuromorphic system that mimics the brain’s complex neuron network

One of Intel’s Nahuku boards, each of which contains 8 to 32 Intel Loihi neuromorphic chips, shown here interfaced to an Intel Arria 10 FPGA development kit. (Image source: Intel)

Intel unveils Pohoiki Beach, which is the company’s latest neuromorphic system. It comprises 64 Loihi research chips, mounted on multiple Intel Nahuku boards to make up the system.

A close-up shot of an Intel Nahuku board, each of which contains 8 to 32 Intel Loihi neuromorphic chips. (Image source: Intel)

Pohoiki Beach is essentially an 8 million-neuron neuromorphic system that represents the complex neuron network of the human brain. The system aims to mimic the behavior of the network of brain cells. According to Intel, researchers are able to “experiment with Intel’s brain-inspired research chip, Loihi, which applies the principles found in biological brains to computer architectures.”

As complex computing workloads become the norm, Pohoiki Beach is an ideal specialized architecture for emerging applications in fields like autonomous vehicles, cybersecurity and even smart homes. Intel Pohoiki Beach has been made available to more than 60 ecosystem partners, who will experiment with implementations of the system with hopes to achieve gains in speed and efficiency in their various complex, compute-intensive use cases.

Image credit: Sumit Bam Shrestha, 2019 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop

The neuromorphic system has been implemented by academic researchers to automate a foosball game. The environment offers an "an excellent test for rapid closed-loop sensing, planning and control algorithms, a sweet spot for neuromorphic technology."

Intel aims to scale up Pohoiki Beach to deliver an ever larger system called Pohoiki Springs later this year.

Source: Intel