Computer control device mimics human brain

A MOLECULAR device that mimics the brain and which could one day act as the controlling element for swarms of nano-machines has been invented.

In a report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the tiny device — just two billionths of a metre across — could be used to boost the processing power of future computers.

It is also hoped the device, which was able to control as many as eight microscopic machines in tests, will pave the way for the use of nano-machines in treating disease.

“If [in the future] you want to remotely operate on a tumour you might want to send some molecular machines there,” explained Dr Anirban Bandyopadhyay, an artificial intelligence and molecular electronics scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan.

“But you cannot just put them into the blood and [expect them] to go to the right place,” he told BBC News.

Dr Bandyopadhyay believes his chemical “nano-brain” device may one day be able to guide microscopic machines through the body and control their functions, he said.

“That kind of device simply did not exist; this is the first time we have created a nano-brain,” he said.

The device is made of 17 molecules of a compound known as duroquinone, with one molecule at the centre of a ring formed by the remaining 16.

Scientists operate the device by tweaking the centre molecule with electrical pulses which in turn changes the states of the surrounding 16.

“We instruct only one molecule and it simultaneously and logically instructs 16 others at a time,” said Dr Bandyopadhyay.

The configuration of the two nanometre diameter structure, which was inspired by the parallel communication of glial cells inside a human brain, allows four billion different possible combinations of outcome.

In comparison, current silicon Central Processing Units (CPUs) can only carry out one instruction at a time, albeit thousands of times per second, and only has two settings — 0 and 1. This means a single pulse can only have two different possible outcomes.

In tests, the device was proved to be able to control multiple nano-machines simultaneously. Eight machines responded to a single instruction after stimulation.

“We have clear-cut evidence that we can control those machines,” said Dr Bandyopadhyay.

This “one-to-many” communication and the device’s ability to act as a central controlling element also raises the possibility of using it in future computers, according to Dr Bandyopadhyay.

Machines built using such devices would be able to process 16 bits of information and researchers say they have already built machines, capable of 256 simultaneous operations, and designed one capable of 1,024.