• System uses electrolyte 'blood' which carries power in and takes heat out
  • It could help develop process power that's densely packed into a 3D space
  • The technology could one day allow a one petaflop computer- currently the size of half a football field- to fit onto a desktop

By Ellie Zolfagharifard

PUBLISHED: 06:00 EST, 21 October 2013 | UPDATED: 10:01 EST, 21 October 2013

A machine that can accurately emulate the human brain is the Holy Grail of computer science.

Now IBM claims to be a step closer to this goal after unveiling a computer that uses 'electronic blood'.

The technology is used to fuel and cool the computer at the same time, similar to how blood functions in the brain.

Blood flow brain

IBM has unveiled a computer that uses electronic blood. The technology is used to fuel and cool the computer at the same time, in the same way as blood function in our brains

The system, reported on the BBC, was demonstrated at IBM's Zurich lab last week.

'We need to make supercomputers 10,000 times more energy-efficient', said IBM scientist Dr Bruno Michel.

'By vertically integrating hundreds of chips with liquid cooling and power supply networks, we take the first steps at IBM Research towards tomorrow's bionic computers.'

Overall the brain consumes the same amount of power as a 20 watt light bulb and occupies the volume of a two-litre bottle.

It is around 10,000 times more dense an efficient than any computer today.

This is because it uses only one – extremely efficient – network of capillaries and blood vessels to transport heat and energy at the same time.

IBM

Inspired by the human brain, IBM scientists in Zurich are exploring a novel way to power and cool computer chips. IBM scientist Patrick Ruch holds a redox flow test chip that claims to be able to do this

Illustration of synapse signalling of cells in the central nervous system.

The brain consumes the same amount of power as a 20 watt light and occupies the volume of a two-litre bottle

'REDOX FLOW': HOW IT WORKS

IBM's system, known as 'redox flow', moves an electrolyte 'blood' which carries power in and takes heat out.

Two liquids called electrolytes, each with oppositely charged electrical ions, will circulate through the system to distribute power.

The fluid-based power supply works similar to a battery: Using central electrodes to charge the fluid – the electrolyte – and discharging electrodes directly in the chip stack.

The electrolytes will travel through ever-smaller tubes, going down to about the width of a human hair, where they will pass their power to conventional electrical wires

Around 40 per cent of its volume is used for functional performance, and only 10 per cent for energy and cooling.

A computer, meanwhile, uses 99 per cent of its volume for cooling and powering, and only one per cent to process information.

By 2060, IBM envisions a one petaflop computer- which takes up half a football field today- to fit on a desktop.

IBM's system, known as 'redox flow', moves an electrolyte 'blood' which carries power in and takes heat out.

'Remarkably, the liquid-cooling system not only keeps the chips at operating temperatures, but also delivers power, similar to the human circulatory system that transports heat as well as
energy,' said IBM in a report.

IBM

The liquid-cooling system not only keeps the computer's chips at operating temperatures, but also delivers power, similar to the human circulatory system that transports heat as well as energy. It could be used to process power that's densely packed into 3D space (pictured) rather than spread out across flat circuit boards

IBM

Current test chips have been built by IBM researchers using vanadium redox flow chemistry, which relies on the electrochemical discharge of vanadium in different oxidation states

The technology could be used to process power that's densely packed into 3D space rather than spread out across flat circuit boards.

Stephen Shankland from Cnet reports that two liquids called electrolytes, each with oppositely charged electrical ions, will circulate through the system to distribute power.

The electrolytes will travel through ever-smaller tubes, going down to about the width of a human hair, where they will pass their power to conventional electrical wires.

'Our inspiration came from the principles of how the brain is assembled and packaged,' said Dr Michel.

'If we combine our understanding of the brain with CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) devices, we can quickly create biomorphic computers, which benefit from the best of nature and technology.'

This work is part of an ongoing effort to develop a computer that can mimic the human brain.

In August, IBM announced a new programming architecture for chips inspired by mind.

The company said the chips could pave the way for smart sensor networks that mimic the brain's capacity for perception, action, and thought.

Chips

In August, IBM announced a new programming architecture for chips inspired by mind. IBM said the model is tailored for a new class of distributed, highly interconnected, parallel, large-scale cognitive computing systems

Meanwhile, in 2011, IBM demonstrated a building block of a novel brain-inspired chip architecture based on a scalable, interconnected, configurable network of 'neurosynaptic cores.'

The chip's memory functions as synapses would in the brain, the processors as neurons and communication as nerve fibres.

These chips attempt to replicate and improve the brain's ability to respond to biological sensors and analysing vast amounts of data from many sources at once.

The project was part of the same research that led to IBM's announcement in 2009 that it had simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer.

Using progressively bigger supercomputers, IBM had previously simulated 40 per cent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and one per cent of a human's cerebral cortex in 2009.

Eventually IBM wants to build a chip system with ten billion neurons and hundred trillion synapses.

IBM REVEALS ITS VISION FOR FUTURE TECHNOLOGY IN 2018

If you've only just got used to talking to your phone, get ready for a major change.

In December, IBM revealed its predictions for the computer we will all be using in 2018 - and it believes they will have all five senses, and will communicate with us in radically different ways.

'Infrared and haptic technologies will enable a smart phone's touchscreen technology and vibration capabilities to simulate the physical sensation of touching something,' the firm said.

'So you could experience the silkiness of that catalog's Egyptian cotton sheets instead of just relying on some copywriter to convince you.

'It's amazing when you look back over the 60+ years of the computing revolution and see how far we have come in such a relatively short time,' said IBM's Bernard Meyerso.


 

The comments below have not been moderated.

I looked at some videos on youtube earlier. What's so good about the human brain?

Technologies from Star Trek are here.

Read Raymond Kurzweil, within 15 years Computers will be self aware and design themselves to be millions of time more intelligent than humans, science fiction you say, everything he has predicted has come to pass.

For a computer to design another computer based around operating parameters not fed to it by a human being it will need to have self-determination, I'm not sure I would trust a man-made machine to make the right choices...

The brain is not highly efficient because it uses blood vessels to transport heat and energy. It's highly efficient because the cells that use the energy do so efficiently. You don't make computers more efficient (which is what the article is implying) by having better power distribution and cooling systems, you make computers more efficient by having the components that do the processing use less electrical power, (you make them smaller!). The article is poorly written and is confusing some basic concepts. You need a processing element, (be it a transistor or logic gate), that uses energy, it's the use of energy that makes it get hot. You have to remove that heat energy otherwise the processing element burns out and malfunctions. You need to supply energy to that processing element (electricity). You don't make the processing element more efficient by having better power distribution or better cooling, you make it more efficient by designing it to use less energy.

I attended an IBM future lecture in the days of Maisonrouge - about 35 years ago. They predicted all this, spoke of how managers would end up typing their own documents and how processors would use neural proteins. Who encourages the visionaries nowadays? Maybe in China?

The singularity and transhumanism are only decades away. Beware the very future and nature of humanity is at stake. The masses really don't understand how fast computer and neuro science are advancing. It won't be long until grid connected human beings are normal; human and artifical intelligences begin to merge and remote control of human wills is possible. I doubt humanity will survive this: we'll either destroy ourselves or transhumanity 1.0 will emerge. This is only a matter of years away.

"Drink Gatorade, It's because it's got electrolytes!" lol

Plants love 'lectrolytes!

Boring, scientists should invent something more useful like a warp drive. Who wants a super intelligent computer that gives sarcastic comments about your tastes when using the internet, spends money on your credit card when it fancies an upgrade, or that starts pleading and singing daisy daisy every time you want to turn it off.

2 of 4 repliesSee all replies

Think he's been reading too much Douglas Adams...

Wait until computers get clever enough to design themselves, shouldn't be more than 10 years now, you may well get your warp drive.

My theory has always been this : If it is possible to create true artificial intelligence, let's say to a standard 100 I.Q - because it is a machine you can simply hook 2 together and make a 200 I.Q and so on. All you need is the first spark of real intelligence. Instantly you can go to a problem solving I.Q of thousands. The moment we do any problem that needs solving the new machine can just do it instantly. Want a warp drive? Ask the machine. Want to know the most efficient battery possible? Ask the machine. Virtually overnight the one invention gives you everything. In fact this is the one and only worry I have about lack of intelligent life on other planets within any reasonable distance. Some should technically have achieved this and the universe should be awash with self replicating super intelligent robots. At the moment, it does not appear that it is.....

I think your logic in this matter is quite flawed. That's the same as saying you can put two people together who have I.Q of a 100 and have a combined I.Q of 200. It doesn't work that way.

2x100 = 2x100 not 200.

Uncanny, I watched the fourth in the series of Terminator last night, could Cnet become Skynet? Scary stuff.

Skynet is real.... do some research

Skynet is real, it's a satellite communications network.

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