Biology Is All You Need
DescriptionStorage and compute technologies are no longer improving at pace with exponentially growing global demand. The world’s largest data storage stakeholders already face hard choices about what data to keep in the face of limited capacity, and compute stakeholders are rapidly approaching the resource scaling limits of massive data centers for training the largest AI models.
Biology offers a guide for solving these problems. Living systems store information in DNA with extraordinary density, enough to store all the world’s data in one small room. Living systems also implement natural intelligence – still an aspirational goal for AI – using low-power neural circuit “wetware” that fits between our ears. If we can understand and exploit these capabilities, we can overcome the scaling issues facing the HPC field.
In this talk, I will describe IARPA’s high-risk, high-payoff research programs to address fundamental problems in storage and computing using biology as a guide. This includes the Molecular Information Storage (MIST) program, which is developing DNA data storage technologies that will eventually allow us to store exabytes of data in a tabletop form factor, and the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program, which has densely mapped the structure and function of neural circuits to guide the development of next-generation computing architectures.
Biology offers a guide for solving these problems. Living systems store information in DNA with extraordinary density, enough to store all the world’s data in one small room. Living systems also implement natural intelligence – still an aspirational goal for AI – using low-power neural circuit “wetware” that fits between our ears. If we can understand and exploit these capabilities, we can overcome the scaling issues facing the HPC field.
In this talk, I will describe IARPA’s high-risk, high-payoff research programs to address fundamental problems in storage and computing using biology as a guide. This includes the Molecular Information Storage (MIST) program, which is developing DNA data storage technologies that will eventually allow us to store exabytes of data in a tabletop form factor, and the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program, which has densely mapped the structure and function of neural circuits to guide the development of next-generation computing architectures.
Event Type
Invited Talk
TimeWednesday, 16 November 202211:15am - 12pm CST
LocationDallas Ballroom/Omni Hotel
TP
XO/EX
Recorded
