Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have launched a national initiative to grant public access to a computing system that promises to use less energy than traditional data centers while expanding research opportunities.
The THOR: The Neuromorphic Commons, provides researchers, including students, with access to neuromorphic computing to aid in experiments dealing with artificial intelligence, machine learning, physics and more.
The initiative was developed through the university’s MATRIX AI Consortium for Human Well-Being and funded through a $4 million National Science Foundation grant awarded to UT San Antonio in 2024.
“It took us almost three years since we started conceptualizing this concept of bringing broader access to neuromorphic computing to the community,” said Dhireesha Kudithipudi, founding director of MATRIX AI Consortium, at a launch event Monday hosted at UT San Antonio’s Downtown Campus.
“The idea is to build a neuromorphic hub for education, research and innovation,” she added. “Really to accelerate discovery and innovation and bring young students to access a computing infrastructure, which has been a very niche platform, but enable them to think big, think of new ideas that they can deploy on this kind of platform.”
Unlike massive data centers — which have been deemed unsustainable due to the large amount of energy and resources needed to operate — neuromorphic computing systems use chips that mimic how the human brain operates by activating only when processing something new, resting in between and utilizing a fraction of the energy that is used by data centers.
Historically, this technology is rarely widely accessible, Kudithipudi said, but through the platform the goal is to foster a wide range of work.
Kudithipudi is leading the effort with the help of Catherine Schuman of the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Gert Cauwenberghs of University of California San Diego as co-principal investigators, as well as Vijay Janapa Reddi from Harvard University as senior personnel.
The UTSA event on Monday also served to bring these and other institutions, including community partners, together to learn more about the system’s capabilities and its current and future use.
“We hope to enable new research with this system, new ideas,” said Andrey Kanaev, program director at the National Science Foundation’s office of advanced cyber infrastructure, during a virtual introduction. “We hope to finally lower the barriers and try to launch neuromorphic in more directions, more fields.”
