Today, Intel Federal LLC announced a three-year agreement with Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) to explore the value of neuromorphic computing for scaled-up computational problems. Sandia will kick off its research using a 50-million neuron Loihi-based system that was delivered to its facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This work with Loihi will lay the foundation for the later phase of the collaboration, which is expected to include continued large-scale neuromorphic research on Intel's upcoming next-generation neuromorphic architecture and the delivery of Intel's largest neuromorphic research system to date, which could exceed more than 1 billion neurons in computational capacity.

"By applying the high-speed, high-efficiency and adaptive capabilities of neuromorphic computing architecture, Sandia National Labs will explore the acceleration of high-demand and frequently evolving workloads that are increasingly important for our national security. We look forward to a productive collaboration leading to the next generation of neuromorphic tools, algorithms, and systems that can scale to the billion neuron level and beyond," said Mike Davies, director of Intel's Neuromorphic Computing Lab.