Intel released the second-generation neuromorphic research chip Loihi 2

Intel announced the launch of the second-generation neuromorphic research chip Loihi 2, and the Lava open-source software framework for developing neuro-inspired applications, marking Intel’s continuous advancement in neuromorphic technology.

Neuromorphic computing is to draw insights from neuroscience, create a chip that functions more like a biological brain, achieve order-of-magnitude improvements in energy efficiency, computing speed, and learning efficiency in a series of edge applications, and solve search and retrieval from vision, speech, and gesture recognition, robot, and constraint optimization issues.

Intel and its partners have demonstrated applications including robotic arms, neuromorphic skin, and olfactory sensing. This time Loihi 2 seems to combine three years of experience in the use of the first-generation research chip and take advantage of the progress made by Intel process technology and asynchronous design methods.

Loihi 2 and Lava harvest insights from several years of collaborative research using Loihi. Our second-generation chip greatly improves the speed, programmability, and capacity of neuromorphic processing, broadening its usages in power and latency constrained intelligent computing applications. We are open sourcing Lava to address the need for software convergence, benchmarking, and cross-platform collaboration in the field, and to accelerate our progress toward commercial viability.

Thanks to the close cooperation between the chip design department and Intel’s technology development department, Loihi 2 is made using a pre-production version of Intel 4 advanced technology (previously known as 7nm SuperFin). This should be the first Intel chip manufactured with a 7nm process. Compared with the old process, the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology further simplifies the layout design rules, making the rapid development of Loihi 2 possible