CHINESE engineers have unveiled a new generation of brain-like computer that mimics the workings of a macaque monkey’s brain. Called Darwin Monkey, the system reportedly supports over 2 billion spiking neurons and more than 100 billion synapses, with a neuron count approaching that of a macaque brain. Developed by the State Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence at Zhejiang University in East China’s Zhejiang Province, the system consumes approximately 2,000 watts of power under typical operating conditions. The neuromorphic brain-like computer operates based on dedicated neuromorphic chips co-developed in 2023 by Zhejiang University and the government-founded Zhejiang Lab. The system consists of 15 blade-style neuromorphic servers, each incorporating 64 Darwin 3 neuromorphic computing chips. A single chip supports more than 2.35 million spiking neurons and hundreds of millions of synapses, and also features a specialized instruction set for brain-inspired computing, as well as an online neuromorphic learning mechanism, according to Global Times. Darwin Monkey marks breakthroughs in several technologies, including improved interconnection and integration of the neural system and the development of a new generation of brain-inspired operating system. Darwin Monkey is the world’s first brain-like computer to combine advanced thinking abilities with vision, hearing, language, and learning functions, Chinese media reported. The research team has successfully deployed several smart applications on the computer. It can run the DeepSeek large model to perform tasks such as logical reasoning, content generation, and mathematical problem-solving. Leveraging its powerful neuronal and synaptic resources, the system can also preliminarily simulate animal brains of varying neuron sizes, including those of elegans, zebrafish, mice, and macaques, offering new possibilities for brain science research, Xinhua reported. In 2024, Intel built Hala Point, the first 1.15 billion-neuron neuromorphic computing system, initially deployed at the Sandia National Laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.(SD-Agencies) | 