Research on General-purpose Brain-Inspired Computing Systems

Abstract

Brain-inspired computing is a new technology that draws on the principles of brain science and is oriented to the efficient development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), while brain-inspired computing system is the hierarchical system composed of neuromorphic chips, basic software and hardware, and algorithms/applications that embody this technology. While the system is developing rapidly, it faces various challenges and opportunities brought by interdisciplinary research, including the issue of software and hardware fragmentation. This paper analyzes the status quo of brain-inspired computing system. Enlightened by some design principle and methodology of general-purpose computers, it is proposed to construct “general-purpose” brain-inspired computing systems, i.e. to design the hierarchical computing system based on the software and hardware (SW/HW) decoupling methodology, including the SNN development tool that supports diverse learning algorithms, the hardware agnostic compilation infrastructure, and the chip micro-architecture with high flexibility of programming and high performance. Further, this paper introduces our recent work in these aspects; these studies show that the “general-purpose” system can remarkably improve the efficiency of application development and enhance the productivity of basic software, thereby being conductive to accelerating the advancement of various brain-inspired algorithms and applications. We believe that this is the key to the collaborative R&D and evolution of applications, basic software and chips in this field, and conducive to building a favorable SW/HW ecosystem of brain-inspired computing.