AI project aims to mimic processes of the human brain

This project will see physicists, biologists, chemists, neuroscientists and artificial intelligence (AI) specialists working to create human-like ‘thinking' hardware.

Experts from the School of Science have received a £965,568 grant from the EPSRC to fund the project which aims to understand how to replicate biological neural networks with electronic chips and create human-like machines.

According to Loughborough, it will be the first system of its kind and will be capable of reproducing the brain's ability to distinguish between fast moving objects, animals and people, as well as express short statements of recognition.

Principal investigator Professor Sergey Saveliev, of the School of Science, said: "Although modern computers significantly outperform the human brain when it comes to numeracy, they still cannot handle tasks requiring guesswork and intuition.

"But using circuits with memristors will allow computers to learn things just as we do.

"It will also help us understand whether the brain can be completely reduced to a biologically-wired electric circuit, or whether our brains have something beyond simple electric and chemical functionalities."