While the world is gearing up to fight the pandemic in the form of coronavirus, Intel has made a significant breakthrough. Intel has designed a chip that can smell various chemicals present in the air.
Based on Intel’s Loihi platform, the chip unsurprisingly uses machine learning algorithms to smell scents in the air. And that includes hazardous chemicals as well. For now, the chip can smell 10 different scents. The neuromorphic chip is “based on the architecture of the mammalian olfactory bulb”. Notable of all is the fact that the chip can learn a particular scent after just one single exposure. This is in contrast to traditional machine learning algorithms which take a number of runs on sample cases.
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Then again, there is no prediction involved here. So comparing this neuromorphic algorithm to traditional machine learning isn’t completely justified. Replicating the olfactory system on a chip level is something that can pave the way for future implementations.
The breakthrough is ground-breaking for two reasons. First, is that this can lead to a number of advancements in the implementation of AI. Secondly, the replication of electrical impulses in our body on a chip level opens up endless possibilities in the future of AI. It’ll be interesting to see how this chip is implemented in the near future.