It also has simulated a region of the brain called the Basal Ganglia - an area affected in Parkinson’s disease, meaning it has massive potential for neurological breakthroughs in science such as pharmaceutical testing."The ultimate objective for the project has always been a million cores in a single computer for real-time brain modelling applications, and we have now achieved it, which is fantastic,” said Mr Furber. We’ve essentially created a machine that works more like a brain than a traditional computer, which is extremely exciting,” said Steve Furber, who conceived the initial idea for such a computer.The newly formed million-processor-core Spiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker) machine is capable of completing more than 200 million actions per second, with each of its chips having 100 million transistors..For example, SpiNNaker has been used to simulate high-level real-time processing in a range of isolated brain networks.To reach this point it has taken 15 million in funding, 20 years in conception and over 10 years in construction, with the initial build starting way back in 2006, according to a statement.The SpiNNaker machine can model more biological neurons in real time than any other machine on the planet. (Photo: manchester.Neuromorphic computing uses large-scale computer systems containing electronic circuits to mimic these spikes in a machine. It does this by running extremely large scale real-time simulations which simply aren’t possible on other machines.One billion neurons are one per cent of the scale of the human brain, which consists of just under 100 billion brain cells, or neurons, which are all highly interconnected via approximately one quadrillion synapses.The power of SpiNNaker has even recently been harnessed to control a robot, the SpOmnibot.One of the fundamental uses for the supercomputer is to help neuroscientists better understand how our own brain works.SpiNNaker is unique because, unlike traditional computers, it does not communicate by sending large amounts of information from point A to B via a standard network."SpiNNaker completely re-thinks the way conventional computers work.This includes an 80,000 neuron model of a segment of the cortex, the outer layer of the brain that receives and processes information from the senses

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