IBM experts have for the first time managed to simulate the cerebral cortex of a feline using a supercomputer . The simulation, which takes place at a speed 100 times slower than a real cat’s brain, aims to understand how thoughts are formed in the brain and emulate the functioning of the 1 billion neurons and the trillions of synapses (connections between neurons) that they exist in the feline brain. To achieve this, the researchers used the Dawn Blue Gene / P supercomputer installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is made up of 147,456 core processors and 144 terabytes of memory.
This milestone brings us closer to the goal of creating a processor that works in a similar way to how the human brain operates, overcoming the density and miniaturization limitations that currently exist in computing . Creating a cognitive computer, according to IBM, is essential to manage data “in a world that generates increasing amounts of digital information.”
Previously, scientists had simulated 40 percent of the brain of a mouse in 2006, the entire brain of a rat in 2007, and 1 percent of the cerebral cortex of a human being this year.
