UC San Diego Part of National Hub for Large-scale Neuromorphic Computing

Story by:

• Ioana Patringenaru- [email protected]

Share This:

Article Content

Bioengineering professor Gert Cauwenberghs at the University of California San Diego is one of four researchers leading a new hub that will provide access to open and heterogeneous neuromorphic computing hardware systems.

The Neuromorphic CommonsHub, also known as THOR, is based at the University of Texas San Antonio and funded by a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation. It aims to deploy and manage a large-scale community research infrastructure. The hub's goal is also to foster interdisciplinary collaborative research on the neuronal foundations of biological intelligence, covering the full spectrum from perception, decision making, to continual learning in the physical world, researchers said.

"We are excited to launch THOR as an open platform for large-scale neuromorphic computing. Broadly accessible to the research communities in computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence, THOR will give the user direct access to a range of powerful neuromorphic hardware modeling and emulating brain function at unprecedented scale," said Cauwenberghs, a professor in the UC San Diego Shu-Chien Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering and director of the UC San Diego Center for Neural Computation.

"We see tremendous potential in leveraging this community resource to democratize the design and application of neuromorphic computing, lowering entry barriers that have traditionally limited access to experts and developers of the technology, thereby accelerating widespread adoption and shared developments while engaging the broader community in research, education, and training at the crossroads between multiple AI-centered STEM disciplines," he added.

The THOR infrastructure will enable richer understanding of computational models, algorithms, neuromorphic hardware, and engineered test cases, supporting research in neuroscience and a wide range of application domains that benefit from bio-inspired processing, the researchers said.

"We plan to design a national hub for open access large scale neuromorphic platforms, through close-knit industry partnerships," said Dhireesha Kudithipudi, principal investigator at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "The field is at a pivotal moment and ensuring access to a broader group of researchers is critical at this stage. This initiative reflects a community-driven approach, shaping a framework designed by and for the community."

Bioengineering professor Gert Cauwenberghs is one of the lead researchers on the THOR hub.
Photo: David Baillot