The new Open Brain Institute, or OBI, builds on the Blue Brain Project from EPFL. The Blue Brain Project aims at making digital brains on computers. Now, OBI wants to let scientists create and test these digital brains with amazing detail and speed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) uses huge amounts of brain data, called petabytes, from worldwide collections. It also taps into all known facts about brains and their problems. This setup helps scientists explore and build digital brain models fast.

The Blue Brain Project began 20 years ago. OBI founder Henry Markram led it to figure out how to copy brain tissue using computers. They found a way to rebuild simple brains backward from limited data. Their digital brains models act like real ones, proved by 300 science papers. These models let scientists do experiments too hard or wrong to do on real brains.

OBI takes this further with virtual labs. Researchers get open data, free information stored online, and open software, millions of code lines to make digital brains. An AI guide helps them study and test brain models.

Radical new directions for AI

Simulation neuroscience now stands with lab work, theory, and doctor studies as a key way to understand brains. Markram says the Blue Brain Project proved brains can be rebuilt on computers. OBI shares this method so scientists can dig deeper into brains than ever before.

“Today, the OBI brings the recipe to build and simulate the brain to empower researchers to explore the brain in unprecedented detail, and at a scale and speed never before imagined,” says Markram in a press release issued by OBI.

“The brain is the only known system that exhibits true generalized intelligence,” continues Markram. OBI’s virtual labs can “study how the brain’s natural architecture… creates intelligence, offering radical new directions for AI.”

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