Brain-inspired chip supercharges AI

A computer chip with “mind-blowing” energy efficiency could speed up artificial intelligence (AI). The computing units in IBM’s NorthPole chip are wired together in a network inspired by connections between parts of the human brain. This eliminates the need to frequently access external memory, which is one of the major bottlenecks for faster processing. It beat existing AI machines by a substantial margin in benchmark image-recognition tests and consumed much less power.