After more than a decade of research, IBM Corp., has developed a radical new chip design that functions just like the human brain. Known as TrueNorth, IBM’s new chip features a “neuromorphic” design that has the potential to become one of greatest tech inventions since computer chips themselves.

TrueNorth has the ability to sense and understand its environment. IBM says it could one day be used in a special kind of thermometer that can detect what kind of illness you have. Or it could be built into glasses for the blind that can see what’s in front of them and talk to the wearer. Or it could be used to design intelligent drones that can be used for search and rescue missions.

These are just some of the ideas – its true fate will be decided by the developers, the ones who create software and hardware utilizing the new chips.

Today’s chips simply aren’t capable doing these things. Laptop and smartphone processors can make lightning-fast calculations, but they’re unable to sense the world around them. The problem is that most chips are unable to make simultaneous calculations.

That’s not how the human brain works. If you think of the brain as a processor, it contains multiple “cores” that act independently of one another, simultaneously making decisions. When you’re driving car for example, one part of the brain is focused on the road, another part is moving the steering wheel, another part is operating the footpedals, another part can sense the surface of the road etc.

IBM’s new chip works in the same way. It possesses 4,096 cores, one million “neurons” and 256 million “synapses”, which means it functions at about the same level as the brain of a bee. And the power of these chips can be combined, says IBM.

Each chip is capable of performing 46 billion synaptic operations per second, which makes them almost supercomputer-like.

“It’s a supercomputer the size of postage stamp, the weight of a feather and runs on the power of a hearing-aid,” said Dharmendra Modha, chief scientist for brain-inspired computing at IBM Research, in an interview with GigaOM. “It’s a genuinely radical innovation.”

Details of the chip were published in the journal Science yesterday. IBM said TrueNorth was the result of more than 10 years research, aided by $53 million of funds from DARPA.

“Designing this chip was no cakewalk,” said Modha. “Many thought it was impossible. The impossible has now become possible. We hope the possible will someday become real.”

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