This is why energy efficiency is important Wednesday, June 24 2009
"The human brain requires about 25 watts of electricity to operate. Markram estimates that simulating the brain on a supercomputer with existing microchips would generate an annual electrical bill of about $3 billion." If you do the math it comes out to just over $5700 per minute. I probably don't eat $5700 worth of food in a year.
I spent some time working in a high performance computing lab during my graduate studies. The P.I. use to always say that there are two classes of algorithms: those that can be run, and those that cannot. For now the human brain is relegated to the latter. Some day it will no longer be and when that day comes, the cost of using it will be crucial. Simulating the human brain
