New intelligent material is a step towards 'quantum brain'

The new material can physically reconfigure itself as it processes and stores new information

A team of researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands claim to have created an intelligent material that could help in developing a functional 'quantum brain', by mimicking the behaviour of neurons and synapses.

The hardware can physically reconfigure itself as it processes and stores new information - similar to how the human brain functions.

For AI systems to work efficiently, the computer running the system must be able to learn new patterns from the environment and recognise previously learned patterns. Modern computers do this using machine learning software, which stores and processes data on separate hard drives.

However, such systems consume large amount of energy, and scientists acknowledge the need to develop new hardware that could produce same results while using less power.

The new material is made up of a network of cobalt atoms, placed onto black phosphorus. The research team says that it could help create a new generation of computers and reduce the carbon footprint of the digital economy.

In 2018, the same team of scientists demonstrated that it was possible to store bits of information in a cobalt atom and induce 'firing' by applying voltage.

After firing, the atom shuttles between two electronic states (between the values of 0 and 1) in a similar way to a neuron in the brain.

In a series of more recent experiments, the researchers configured a network of cobalt atoms that carried information through it. They observed that the behaviour of their brain-like model and firing neurons imitated the processing patterns of AI systems.

"When stimulating the material over a longer period of time with a certain voltage, we were very surprised to see that the synapses actually changed," said project leader Alexander Khajetoorians, professor of scanning probe microscopy at Radboud University.

"The material adapted its reaction based on the external stimuli that it received. It learned by itself."

The researchers are planning to expand their network of cobalt atoms in follow-up studies, and to carry out experiments to find out exactly how the network changes itself in response to new inputs.

The detailed findings of the research are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Back in 2012, Google claimed a similar AI breakthrough by developing a massive network of systems which, it said, was able to learn and recognise content without human interaction.

In 2016, IBM scientists claimed their own breakthrough in efforts to build a machine that computes like a human brain.

In 2019, researchers at UC Berkeley and the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (iMM) in California said that exponential advancement in the fields of IT, nanotechnology and AI could enable scientists to connect human brains with the internet "within decades".

They stated that the novel technology, dubbed a "human brain/cloud interface" (B/CI), would connect synapses and neurons in human brains to vast cloud networks in real time, giving people access to immense computing power and knowledge via the power of thought alone.