Penn State Joins AI Accelerator Program

Pennsylvania State University has joined the BrainChip University AI Accelerator Program, an initiative from AI processor technology provider BrainChip that offers platforms and guidance to students in higher education AI engineering programs. The program will give students "access to real-world, event-based technologies offering unparalleled performance and efficiency to advance their learning through graduation and beyond," according to a news announcement.

Through the partnership, the Neuromorphic Computing Lab at Penn State's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) will utilize BrainChip's neuromorphic technology in its efforts to create a new type of computer that can learn and operate with brain-scale efficiency, the announcement said.

"As part of Penn State's Neuromorphic Computing Lab, we are dedicated to bridging the gap between nanoelectronics, neuroscience, and machine learning," explained Abhronil Sengupta, EECS assistant professor, in a statement. "By joining BrainChip's University AI Accelerator Program, we are better positioned to provide our students with resources needed to enable further research and study into neuromorphic computing. By leveraging BrainChip's technology with our inter-disciplinary approach to data science and AI, we ensure students are ready to develop solutions for the world's most pressing issues."

BrainChip's Akida IP neural processor is an event-based technology that the company says is inherently lower power when compared to conventional neural network accelerators, affording greater scalability and lower operational costs. Potential applications include next-generation smart cars, smart homes, and industrial IoT.

"We hope by making neuromorphic event-based technology readily available, we can give students hands-on experience with a new paradigm in computation and open fundamentally new research directions in engineering," said Tony Lewis, CTO of BrainChip. "Neuromorphic event-based computing may be a solution to the inefficiencies inherent in conventional AI computation that is of growing concern to the public. It's important that students engage early and with the right tools."

Other universities participating in the BrainChip University AI Accelerator Program include Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Oklahoma, University of Virginia, and University of Western Australia.

For more information, visit the BrainChip site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • student reading a book with a brain, a protective hand, a computer monitor showing education icons, gears, and leaves

    4 Steps to Responsible AI Implementation

    Researchers at the University of Kansas Center for Innovation, Design & Digital Learning (CIDDL) have published a new framework for the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence at all levels of education.

  • glowing digital brain interacts with an open book, with stacks of books beside it

    Federal Court Rules AI Training with Copyrighted Books Fair Use

    A federal judge ruled this week that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not violate copyright law when it used copyrighted books to train its Claude chatbot without author consent, but ordered the company to face trial on allegations it used pirated versions of the books.

  • server racks, a human head with a microchip, data pipes, cloud storage, and analytical symbols

    OpenAI, Oracle Expand AI Infrastructure Partnership

    OpenAI and Oracle have announced they will develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, expanding their artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership as part of the Stargate Project, a joint venture among OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank Group that aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of computing capacity over four years.

  • laptop displaying a phishing email icon inside a browser window on the screen

    Phishing Campaign Targets ED Grant Portal

    Threat researchers at cybersecurity company BforeAI have identified a phishing campaign spoofing the U.S. Department of Education's G5 grant management portal.