The Pentagon is currently putting money into the research and development of a tiny microchip called "Eyeriss," small enough to fit inside mobile devices, which possesses artificial intelligence on par with the human brain and will eventually be used on the battlefield, according to the Daily Mail. This palm-sized processor contains 168 cores and is modeled after the neural networks that make up the human brain that its amazing computing power. To put things into perspective, most processing chips in smartphones have just four cores.
The Pentagon plans to use this technology on the battlefield in drones and robots to allow them to conduct learning in real-time and eliminate the need for human observation and analysis. For example, a drone running on Eyeriss could identify targets and alert ground troops of their presence.
The use of this technology on the battlefield could help reduce the time and money needed to train human soldiers, according to Sputnik International, as well as eliminate the need for human analysts monitoring drones and satellites, according to Activist Post.
"Human observation and analysis of [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] assets is essential, but the training of humans is both expensive and time-consuming," said DARPA. "Human performance also varies due to individuals' capabilities and training, fatigue, boredom, and human attentional capacity."
The chip, which is being developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is 10 times as efficient as a mobile GPU and may also be used in smartphones to allow them to run artificial-intelligence algorithms more effectively.
"Deep learning is useful for many applications, such as object recognition, speech, face detection," said Vivienne Sze, head of the group who developed the new chip. "Right now, the networks are pretty complex and are mostly run on high-power GPUs.You can imagine that if you can bring that functionality to your cell phone, you could still operate even if you don't have a Wi-Fi connection."
