The White House has just announced a grand challenge. A solution to this challenge will remake our world. In their words:

Create a new type of computer that can proactively interpret and learn from data, solve unfamiliar problems using what it has learned, and operate with the energy efficiency of the human brain.

Image by James & Vilija

On the surface, this challenge may not be all that different than the last 30 years of research into neuroscience, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. We have dreamt of understanding the secretes of the brain for decades–even centuries. Our path has taken us through a number of booms and busts, and it has culminated with the rise of the modern computer. With the aid of computers, humans have made great strides in elucidating the core principles of learning and intelligence. However, it is only now that I feel we are about to make true progress. The reason is that we are finally, at a national level, becoming aware of the adaptive power problem. The key words in the challenge, the words that properly focus our collective attention and, I strongly believe, will result in a solution to machine intelligence are: “and operate with the energy efficiency of the human brain”.

Modern computing architectures have made us gods over an infinity of computational universes. But under the marketing and hype of a massive industry lies a dark secret. Those who uncover that secret–and calmly and rationally address it–will open a new era in human evolution.

It’s great to see that, as a nation, we have finally come to acknowledge that our computers have physical limits and that to overcome these limits and create intelligence machines we must build a new type of physically adaptive hardware. As the White House puts it:

Many of these breakthroughs will require new kinds of nanoscale devices and materials integrated into three-dimensional systems….

To put it mildly, Knowm Inc supports this grand challenge and commends those who made it happen. That is why Knowm Inc has developed AHaH Computing, the BS-AF-W Learning Memristor, kT-RAM, the Knowm API and, perhaps most importantly, the Knowm Development Community.

Bravo to the White House! Read about The Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenge for Future Computing