LK03 Special Day Emerging Computing Paradigm Lunchtime Keynote: Neuromorphic Computing at Cloud Level

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Christian Mayr, TU Dresden, Germany

Christian Mayr
Abstract

AI is having an increasingly large impact on our daily lives. However, current AI hardware and algorithms are still only partially inspired by the major blueprint for AI, i.e. the human brain. In particular, even the best AI hardware is still far away from the 20W power consumption, the low latency and the unprecedented large scale, high-throughput processing offered by the human brain.

In this talk, I will describe our bio-inspired AI hardware, in particular our award-winning SpiNNaker2 system, which achieves a unique fusion of GPU, CPU, neuromorphic and probabilistic components. It takes inspiration from biology not just at the single-neuron level like current neuromorphic chips, but throughout all architectural levels.

On the algorithm front, I will give examples on how to use general neurobiological computing principles (hierarchy, asynchronity, dynamic sparsity and distance-dependent topologies/hierarchical computing) to reframe conventional AI algorithms, usually achieving an order of magnitude improvement in energy-delay product.

Bio

Christian Mayr received the Dipl.-Ing. (M.Sc.) in Electrical Engineering in 2003, his PhD in 2008 and Habilitation in 2012, all three from Technische Universitätt Dresden, Germany. From 2003 to 2013, he has been with Technische Universität Dresden, with a secondment to Infineon (2004-2006). From 2013 to 2015, he was a group leader at the Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2015, he is full professor at TU Dresden, head of the Chair of Highly-Parallel VLSI Systems and Neuromorphic Circuits. His research interests include computational neuroscience, bio-inspired artificial intelligence, brain-machine interfaces, AD converters and general System-on-Chip design. He is author/co-author of over 180 publications and holds 4 patents. He is a PI in two German excellency clusters, in the federal German AI compute center Scads.AI and in the EU flagship Human Brain Project. He has co-founded three startups. His work has received several national and international awards.