IBM starts work on computer to rival the human brain By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent THE first supercomputers to approach and even surpass the processing power of the human brain are to be built by IBM, under a £184 million contract announced by the US Government yesterday. ASCI Purple and Blue Gene/L will be the fastest and most powerful machines built, with a combined capacity equal to the 500 best of today’s computers. ASCI Purple, which will be built first and used to simulate nuclear tests, will be able to complete 100 thousand billion calculations per second — a speed known as 100 teraflops that some scientists say is comparable to the human brain. Blue Gene/L, which has a broader range of functions and will be used by US Department of Energy’s three main laboratories, will be more powerful still, with a maximum speed of 360 teraflops. The computers, which will be built by 2004, will lack the consciousness, intellect and capacity for thought of a brain, but will be equivalent in calculating speed and power. They have memories of at least two petabytes — equal to a billion books. Mike Nelson, IBM’s director of internet technology and strategy, said: “It is hard to quantify the power of a brain, but when you look at the raw processing power of these machines, you’re looking at figures in the same ballpark.” The computers will not have artificial intelligence, and scientists remain many years away from building one that matches even the abilities of a simple mouse brain. ASCI Purple will be built using 12,544 IBM Power5 microprocessors, the same chips that are used in Apple PCs and Nintendo games systems. It will have autonomic software, allowing it to monitor itself for hardware breakdowns or lack of capacity. Blue Gene/L will be able to map stars in three dimensions, analyse earthquakes, and help in oil exploration. ---------------- do we really need a computer to rival the human brain? We don't even use all of our brain, what happens when a computer will?
More money being wasted by IBM. Meanwhile, Dell will continue to eat up market share in the desktop, notebook, and server businesses. What a shame.
100 teraflops? Please, that is slow. My brain functions at a minimum of 200 teraflops. 100 teraflops is probably the average in Game Action, not the Hangout.
While they gain share in the high-margin, low-volume supercomputing market -- which suits their strengths. Let a non-technical company like Dell have the low-margin commodity computer business. What a misleading title though -- I'm sure the engineers working on the project are uncomfortable with it.
Umm... IBM is making money on this. It's our government that's spending this money. And if you think IBM is only desktops, notebooks, and servers, you don't know IBM. IBM has prospered because they're content being "not necessarily #1".
So if it is truly going to rival the human brain, we'll have a computer that: * forgets things all the time * loses its temper * plays favorites with users, and with other computers * surfs the internet looking for p*rn Um, great.
#1 - to compare it to the human brain isn't necessarily apples-to-apples. The human brain combines both analog and digital type computing elements and integrated feedback mechanisms that are much more complex than that. For a computer to accurately model the human brain, assuming it was really fully understood, would require many times the computing power that the human brain posesses. #2 - The old aphorism about using 10% of the brain is perhaps more accurately described as 10% of the brain is used at one time, and even then it's probably not too accurate. #3 - Even though alot of the human brain is dedicated to animal functions, such as keeping your heart beating, almost all of these functions are so tied into higher functions that they can't be seperated. To give you an example , check out the cool process known as blinsight in which people who are "blind" are able to see using secondary antiquated optical pathways.
If it was patterned after MY brain, it would constantly become unresponsive as it thought about Whataburger! You could never use the computer around lunch time.
To simulate B-Bob's brain, all you need is a 486DX with 24 megs of ram and a 340 meg hard drive! Just Kidding!
I agree, IBM's slowly changing from a hardware company to a services company. Their services sector grows every year. I would have loved to have gotten a job as an EE at IBM. However, their business model needs work. They lead the world in annual patents, and they also spend more money on R&D than any other organization.
That's a crazy site, Ottomaton. I always wonder why they need faster supercomputers to calculate nuclear explosions. It's usallly the DoE that contracts them. Are there more details that we don't about?
In one of our management classes, we did a case study on Dell and the conclusion was that, while they will be a successful company in the future, their big growth years are behind them. They do have market share by sheer numbers of desktops and servers, and they have proven that you can be profitable making plain old PC's. The problem is the PC is slowly becoming a peripheral to total solution networks. Individual owners of PC's are buying new PC's slower and slower because now it has gotten to the point that PC's can last longer and longer...even though speed increases on new PC's at about the same rate as it always has, the "slower" computers just aren't slow enough to justify new computers every 2 years. Dell markets itself on sheer number and use a low cost model of business...this will keep them profitable for years...but the barriers of entry into the PC market are tumbling faster than ever before, and its only a matter of time before a company comes along and does it better...that's going to be their downfall. A new company will come in and finally successfully compete with the low cost strategy...Gateway almost did it...someone WILL do it unless Dell switches strategies. Our class identified IBM and the new HP as the companies that will be able to compete and grow in the coming years...they will have struggles, especially HP who is going to be combining with Compaq for several years...takes time to smooth mergers out. Those two companies are "total solutions companies." They'll make the big money selling the total package of high end servers (Dell, and even IBM can't compete with HP on those) the service support and peripherals (PC's and such) to those networks. That's where the money will be. IBM has been the first to make the transition with HP coming up pretty quick (they have the advantage of the fastest and most respected servers and a HIGHLY profitable printer division). Dell really isn't a competitor to either of those companies any more. I'm not saying Dell is a bad company, they're a great company...just different...and in a market that's going to have a tough time in the coming years. When we interviewed some guys from HP, they said that Dell and Gateway are totally different companies from IBM and HP, and that they don't directly compete anymore...basically HP and IBM have given up on the "box" market (PC's). Dell will now always continue to sell low end computers and affordable, small servers, and eat up market share by the sheer numbers...but IBM and HP will be the giants in the IT industry. On a related note: HP servers (former Compaq) are awesome...their high end Himalayas are so far advanced over all the other companies servers its ridiculous. Something like 97% of the world's stock markets use their servers to run everything...like 9 out of the top 10 websites use their high ends...the state department...the military...its pretty cool. We saw a video with their servers and their called "fault tolerant." I thought, OK, this means that if theirs a glich in one part of the server, it can still run, nope, it means that you can basically flood them, hit them with a bat, shoot them with a gun, subject them to cold and heat, and they still run...that's pretty cool. IBM and especially Dell have nothing like it...allthough IBM has some cool super computers. I'll stop ranting...I'm such a geek, talking about class on the BBS!
