IBM, EPFL join forces to study cognitive intelligence

IBM said on Monday that it is teaming with a European institute in a research initiative to uncover the secrets of human cognitive intelligence.

Scientists from IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) of Switzerland will work together over the next two years to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex -- the largest and most complex part of the human brain, IBM said.

The scientists hope that by expanding the project, nicknamed the Blue Brain Project, to model other areas of the brain, they will eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain.

Using the digital model created with IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer, scientists will run computer-based simulations of the brain at the molecular level, shedding light on internal processes such as thought, perception and memory, IBM said.

The scientists also hope to understand more about how and why certain microcircuits in the brain malfunction -- thought to be the cause of psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and depression.

"Modeling the brain at the cellular level is a massive undertaking because of the hundreds of thousands of parameters that need to be taken into account," said Henry Markram, the EPFL professor heading up the project.

Under the initiative, IBM will install a Blue Gene supercomputer at EPFL, with a peak processing speed of at least 22. 8 trillion floating-point operations per second (22.8 teraflops), making it one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Markram is the founder of EPFL's Brain and Mind Institute, where more than 10 years of research and wet-lab experiments have produced the world's most comprehensive set of empirical data on the micro-architecture of the neocortex.

Researchers from IBM will use their experience in simulating complex biological systems to help turn this data into a working 3- dimensional model re-creating the high-speed electro-chemical interactions of the brain's interior.

Source: Xinhua