Hi all, IARPA has just released a new Request for Information (RFI) on "neurally-inspired computing principles," and I'm hopeful that members of this community will submit some interesting whitepapers in response.  Note that the RFI is issued solely for information gathering purposes, and does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals.  IARPA anticipates that responses to this RFI will be used to help organize a workshop on this topic at the 2016 Neuro Inspired Computational Elements conference (http://niceworkshop.org/) and to inform future programs in this technical area.  The full text of the announcement is published at https://www.fbo.gov/notices/7ea2ad0e075b31c05a011f2d835392a9; a brief synopsis is presented below.  

 

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Seventy years ago, John von Neumann found inspiration for the design of the EDVAC in what was then known about the design of the brain.  However, despite the early influence of neuroscience on what has become known as the von Neumann architecture, the principles of computing underlying today’s state of the art digital systems deviate substantially from the principles that govern computing in the brain.  In particular, whereas mainstream computers rely on synchronous operations, high precision, and clear physical and conceptual separations between storage, data, and logic; the brain relies on asynchronous messaging, low precision storage that is co-localized with processing, and dynamic memory structures that change on both short and long time scales.  To understand the potential opportunities and challenges in developing next-generation computers that exploit these and other principles of neural computing, IARPA is seeking information from two groups of experts: (1) computer scientists with experience in designing or building computing systems that rely on the same or similar principles as those employed by the brain; and (2) neuroscientists who have credible ideas for how neural computing principles can offer practical benefits for next-generation computers.

Responses to this RFI should clearly and concisely answer the questions posed below (to neuroscientists, computer scientists, or both) in one or more of the four topics described in detail in the full text of this announcement (https://www.fbo.gov/notices/7ea2ad0e075b31c05a011f2d835392a9):

Topic 1: Spike-based representations
Topic 2: Asynchronous computation
Topic 3: Learning
Topic 4: Co-local memory storage and computation

Responses to this RFI are due no later than 5:00pm Eastern Time on January 29, 2016.  IARPA appreciates responses from all capable and qualified sources from within and outside of the US.  Inquiries to this RFI must be submitted to dni-iarpa-rfi-16-02@iarpa.gov.