Intel has announced the development of a highly advanced neuromorphic system, known as Hala Point, with 1,150 million neurons using Loihi 2 processors. This system is expected to revolutionize the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry by providing a more efficient and modular approach.
Hala Point is currently deployed at Sandia National Laboratories to support the analysis of future brain-inspired AI. The company believes that the industry requires new scalable approaches, and this research prototype is expected to advance technology efficiency and adaptability at scale.
The system consists of 1.152 Loihi 2 processors on an Intel 4 process node, supporting up to 1.15 billion neurons and 128 billion synapses across 140,544 neuromorphic processing cores. It integrates processing, memory, and communication channels in a parallelized fabric, providing significant memory and communication bandwidth. With capabilities to perform 20 quadrillion operations per second, the system is designed for real-time continuous learning in various AI applications such as scientific problem solving, logistics, smart city infrastructure management, and AI agents.
Compared to its predecessor Pohoiki Springs, Hala Point offers significant improvements in performance and efficiency for real-time processing tasks. The system is capable of executing its full capacity 20 times faster than the human brain and up to 200 times faster at lower capacity, especially in bioinspired models of spiking neural networks.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories will utilize Hala Point to solve scientific computing problems in various fields like device physics, computer architecture, and computer science. Intel plans to deploy this neuromorphic research prototype to its research collaborators as part of a new family of large-scale neuromorphic systems.
Overall, Hala Point represents a major leap forward in AI technology development and has the potential to transform industries across multiple sectors.