Intel’s brain-inspired research chip, the eight million neurons neuromorphic system,  is now available to the broader research community, the chip giant said in a statement on Monday.

The neuromorphic system, comprising 64 Loihi research chips and codenamed Pohoiki Beach, applies the principles found in biological brains to computer architectures, according to Intel.

Loihi enables users to process information up to 1,000 times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than CPUs for specialized applications like sparse coding, graph search and constraint-satisfaction problems, says Intel. The system lays the foundation for Intel Labs to scale the architecture to 100 million neurons later this year, according to the company.

Later this year, Intel says it will introduce a larger Loihi system named Pohoiki Springs, which will build on the Pohoiki Beach architecture for scaled-up neuromorphic workloads.

[Image courtesy: Intel]