BRN Discussion Ongoing

[Fact Finder]

I’m trying to get my head around the ‘Frontiers in Neuroscience’ article posted by someone last night - the updated article by Russian authors. My primitive read of the comparison of Akida with other neuromorphic chips was that we weren’t hugely different (like I said though, I don’t really understand the nitty gritty). Anyone else have any insights?

This is what the Russian researchers say:

“3.8. Akida
Akida (Vanarse et al., 2019) is the first commercial neuromorphic processor, commercially available since August 2021. It has been developed by Australian BrainChip since 2013. Fifteen companies, including NASA, joined the early access program. In addition to Akida System on Chip (SoC), BrainChip also offers licensing of their technologies, providing chip manufacturers a license to build custom solutions.
The chip is marketed as a power efficient event-based processor for edge computing, not requiring an external CPU. Power consumption for various tasks may range from 100 μW to 300 mW. For example, Akida is capable of processing at 1,000 frames/Watt (compare to TrueNorth with 6,000 frames/Watt). The first generation chip supports operations with convolutional and fully connected networks, with the prospect to add support of LSTM, transformers, capsule networks, recurrent and cortical neural networks. ANN network can be transformed into SNN and executed on the chip.
One Akida chip in a mesh network incorporates 80 Neural Processing Units, which enables modeling 1,200,000 neurons and 10,000,000,000 synapses. The chip is built at TSMC 28 nm. In 2022, BrainChip announced the second generation chip at 16 nm.
Akida’s ecosystem provides a free chip emulator, TensorFlow compatible framework MetaTF for the transformation of convolutional and fully connected neural networks into SNN, and a set of pre-trained models. When designing a neural network architecture for execution at Akida, one should take into account a number of additional limitations concerning the layer parameters (e.g., maximum convolution size is 7, while stride 2 is supported for convolution size 3 only) and their sequence.
The major distinctive feature is that incremental, one-shot and continuous learning are supported straight at the chip. At the AI Hardware Summit 2021 BrainChip showed the solution capable of identifying a human in other contexts after having seen him or her only once. Another product by BrainChip is a smart speaker, that on having heard a new voice asks the speaker to identify and after that calls the person by their name. There results are achieved with help of a proprietary local training algorithm on the basis of homeostatic STDP. Only the last fully connected layer supports synaptic plasticity and is involved in learning.
Another instructive case from the AI Hardware Summit 2021 was a classification of fast-moving objects (for example, a race car). Usually, such objects are off the frame center and significantly blurred but they can be detected using an event- based approach”

So just straight off the top the distinctive features:

1. It is a commercial in the market chip - first one and has commercial partners.

2. One shot learning on chip.

3. Incremental continuous learning on chip.

4. 1.2 million neurons and 10 billion synapses

5. Is compatible with TensorFlow and has MetaTF.

There are other things but not disclosed in this paper such as scalability and much higher fps than the article refers too, ability to process all five senses as well as radar, Lidar and ultrasonics on the one chip. @Diogenese can add the other things I have forgotten at the moment. Yes it is also sensor and processor agnostic. That will have to do for now.

The article also does not mention that Loihi is not a single chip but a board combining multiple chips. Loihi can only process two senses at last report a month or so ago.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

 

[Worker122]

Not Brainchip related:

A while ago I briefly posted (then deleted) that a mate of mine was in Kiev as an instructor; teaching combat first aid etc for the combatant. For those that read it and were wondering; I spoke to him the other day. He’s in good spirits but as expected it’s been emotionally draining for him. He was hearing about those who he personally trained and briefly became friends with over the last few months who have been killed or injured.

“Winter is coming” which putting it lightly is going to bring more challenges to the Ukrainian people who are already doing it tough.

He deliberately chose not to go to the main combat zones himself and as a Medic he was in a non-combat role. He’s seen enough previously and will always carry the mental scars from other conflict zones he’s been to. He’s on his way back now as he has commitments in Australia he has to meet.

On leaving he gave away his body armour and expensive medical kit he brought over from Australia to those who will need it more. He paid his own way and although he was offered a paid role he declined that and did it as a volunteer. He doesn’t think he’s done anything special and he’s still wondering if he could have done more to help the many innocents who truly need help from this evil atrocity.

Just posting this to reassure those who care; that he’s survived. And despite all the negative press floating around there are some good people out there trying to make a difference.

We’ve all invested in Brainchip to become wealthy to make our lives better. In the end once we reach a certain level of wealth; money can only do so much. We can also enrich our lives through quality relationships and community spirit!

Cheers

Your Mate = RESPECT

 

[Boab]

What’s happening, is there an inquiry into BRN? It doesn’t appear to be trading??

I’m trying to get my head around the ‘Frontiers in Neuroscience’ article posted by someone last night - the updated article by Russian authors. My primitive read of the comparison of Akida with other neuromorphic chips was that we weren’t hugely different (like I said though, I don’t really understand the nitty gritty). Anyone else have any insights?

Me too as they were a bit dismissive towards some aspects of Akida.

 

[Fact Finder]

This is what the Russian researchers say:

“3.8. Akida
Akida (Vanarse et al., 2019) is the first commercial neuromorphic processor, commercially available since August 2021. It has been developed by Australian BrainChip since 2013. Fifteen companies, including NASA, joined the early access program. In addition to Akida System on Chip (SoC), BrainChip also offers licensing of their technologies, providing chip manufacturers a license to build custom solutions.
The chip is marketed as a power efficient event-based processor for edge computing, not requiring an external CPU. Power consumption for various tasks may range from 100 μW to 300 mW. For example, Akida is capable of processing at 1,000 frames/Watt (compare to TrueNorth with 6,000 frames/Watt). The first generation chip supports operations with convolutional and fully connected networks, with the prospect to add support of LSTM, transformers, capsule networks, recurrent and cortical neural networks. ANN network can be transformed into SNN and executed on the chip.
One Akida chip in a mesh network incorporates 80 Neural Processing Units, which enables modeling 1,200,000 neurons and 10,000,000,000 synapses. The chip is built at TSMC 28 nm. In 2022, BrainChip announced the second generation chip at 16 nm.
Akida’s ecosystem provides a free chip emulator, TensorFlow compatible framework MetaTF for the transformation of convolutional and fully connected neural networks into SNN, and a set of pre-trained models. When designing a neural network architecture for execution at Akida, one should take into account a number of additional limitations concerning the layer parameters (e.g., maximum convolution size is 7, while stride 2 is supported for convolution size 3 only) and their sequence.
The major distinctive feature is that incremental, one-shot and continuous learning are supported straight at the chip. At the AI Hardware Summit 2021 BrainChip showed the solution capable of identifying a human in other contexts after having seen him or her only once. Another product by BrainChip is a smart speaker, that on having heard a new voice asks the speaker to identify and after that calls the person by their name. There results are achieved with help of a proprietary local training algorithm on the basis of homeostatic STDP. Only the last fully connected layer supports synaptic plasticity and is involved in learning.
Another instructive case from the AI Hardware Summit 2021 was a classification of fast-moving objects (for example, a race car). Usually, such objects are off the frame center and significantly blurred but they can be detected using an event- based approach”

So just straight off the top the distinctive features:

1. It is a commercial in the market chip - first one and has commercial partners.

2. One shot learning on chip.

3. Incremental continuous learning on chip.

4. 1.2 million neurons and 10 billion synapses

5. Is compatible with TensorFlow and has MetaTF.

There are other things but not disclosed in this paper such as scalability and much higher fps than the article refers too, ability to process all five senses as well as radar, Lidar and ultrasonics on the one chip. @Diogenese can add the other things I have forgotten at the moment. Yes it is also sensor and processor agnostic. That will have to do for now.

The article also does not mention that Loihi is not a single chip but a board combining multiple chips. Loihi can only process two senses at last report a month or so ago.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

Loihi-based neuromorphic system

• 3.1Kapoho Bay (2 chip, 262K neurons)
• 3.2Wolf Mountain (4 chip, 524K neurons)
• 3.3Nahuku (32 chip, 4M neurons)
• 3.4Pohoiki Beach (64 chip, 8M neurons)
• 3.5Pohoiki Springs (768 chip, 100M neurons)

So despite claiming to be a single Loihi chip at 14nm even for research purposes you cannot just receive one chip.

So whenever some institute is publishing results of using Loihi remember it is very difficult to compare results with AKIDA TM as they will have been using 2, 4, 32, 64 or 768 Loihi chip combinations.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

 

[Boab]

Me too as they were a bit dismissive towards some aspects of Akida.

This was the sentence that I was wondering about.

When designing a neural network architecture for execution at Akida, one should take into account a number of additional limitations concerning the layer parameters (e.g., maximum convolution size is 7, while stride 2 is supported for convolution size 3 only) and their sequence.

 

[Learning]

The U.S. and its allies are joining forces on chips. That could stop China reaching the next level​

The U.S. and its allies are joining forces on chips. That could stop China reaching the next level

Leading chipmaking nations including the U.S. and South Korea have looked to forge partnerships around semiconductors. But China is not involved in any of them.

www.cnbc.com

Learning

 

[Hrdwk]

Hi @Fullmoonfever

Thanks for the reminder and I did read it previously and agree something HAS to be done.

I am not concerned in the least with Brainchip Inc but with the system that promotes this type of inequity while sprouting that everything it is doing is to promote a level playing field for all investors.

If I was a Columbian drug lord I would feel totally protected by the current system but as a normal member of the Australian community and retail shareholder I feel left out when it comes to this idea of a level playing field.

I compensate for this feeling of abandonment by the 'powers that be' by continually doing my own research and ensuring my action plan is up to date. The idea that anyone could invest on the ASX and simply trust or hope is for me the stuff of nightmares.

When you look at the findings of the Banking Royal Commission and most recently the findings about the Crown and Star Casinos and the people involved at the top of these criminal enterprises how is it that anyone could believe in any aspect of Government regulation of the monied end of town in Australia.

Anyway my whole approach from when I started to understand the industry around the ASX in the form of share advice services, financial planners, financial writers, stock forums, Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn share market gurus, start up promoters, in fact everything from share trolls to share presentations and brokers has led me to this point do not trust anyone until you have done your own independent research and sadly if you for whatever reason do not have the ability or time to constantly engage with your investment then just do not invest in the share market.

When I say do not trust anyone I mean even your own relatives (Melissa Caddick) or members of the same Church or faith (Rene Rivkin).

Just recently I received a letter and a cheque for my son-in-law from Asgard refunding to his late mother's estate personal investment advice fees which they had continued to charge her after her demise for almost four years. This was not an error they had picked up in an audit they had been ordered to make these refunds following the Royal Commission.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

Not sure if anyone has seen this. It alls sounds very cryptic but very interesting

 

[McHale]

Hi @Moonshot
The following is the ASIC Guide. Two things to note:
1. The reasons for disclosure
2. The only way to know if a Nominee is holding as a bare trust and entitled to an exemption is to read the fine print of the agreement and speak to the parties about how it operates formally and informally because there is nothing standard about a Nominee agreement.

https://download.asic.gov.au/media/1236706/rg5-published-20-december-2013.pdf

To assist:

“What is a Nominee Company and Why are They Used?​

by Quinns Blog | Oct 12, 2020 | Accounting News, Newsletter Features
A nominee is a person, partnership or company that is entrusted to hold and administer shares or other property as the registered legal owner on behalf of the real owner (beneficial owner). The nominee holds the shares or property on trust and will have their name and details listed on public documentation in place of the beneficial owner who has the effective ownership and control of the shares.

The nominee is the legal owner in name only and the beneficial owner holds an equitable interest in those shares. In brief, an equitable interest is an interest in or right over property, which gives the holder of the right to acquire formal legal title from the person who is registered as the owner (nominee).
A corporate nominee is most frequently used to hold shares on trust on behalf of the beneficial owner. To ensure the beneficial owner retains control over the shares, an agreement between the nominee shareholder and the beneficial owner is executed stating that the shares or property are held on trust by the nominee for the beneficial owner’s benefit and that the nominee’s name and details will be used on documentation. An agreement can also outline specific terms, such as whether the nominee shareholder, as the registered owner of shares, can exercise any control such as voting rights. Express terms dealing with voting rights are often included and in the majority of cases, nominee shareholder does not and would not vote at all unless expressly directed or authorised by the beneficial owner.”

If you decide to read all the above you will realise that according to the ASIC ensuring disclosure is essential to allow shareholders to be properly informed so they can make proper decisions.

This idea is one that I completely agree with particularly when one of the stated reasons for using a Nominee in the above article is to hide your identity.

If this was a legitimate consideration why are all other shareholder details freely available on the share register. Why do we not get to tick a box when we buy shares that stops our name being publicly available.

In any event as all of the above makes clear simply using the term Nominee does not of itself exempt compliance with S. 671B of the Corporations Act.

This being so how can it not be reasonable for ASIC to inform this concerned shareholder after they conclude their investigation of the result.

What impediment would doing so have on the operation of the fair market to inform this concerned shareholder that CitiCorp Nominees is a fair and noble company acting within the letter and spirit of the law? Would not it raise my confidence that the market is being conducted fairly in the interests of all participants?

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

You can't get much more black and white than what is clearly stated in Quinns Accounting blog, as FF has posted above.

So if ASIC are going to do their proper duty as required per law legislated by the Aust Fed Gov't.

Then either CitiCorp Nominees or the "beneficial owner"
should file a Form 603 - "Becoming a Substantial Holder" (legally required under ASX constant disclosure rules when an entity begins to hold over 5% of a publicly listed ASX Company).

Form 604 is then required for ANY "Change of Interests of a Substantial Holder", under constant disclosure rules.

Form 605 is required upon "Ceasing to be a Substantial Holder" as in moving below the 5% holding threshold.

Next move for non compliance Commonwealth Ombudsman or Fed MP(s).

Thanks for your diligence FF

 

[alwaysgreen]

Not sure if anyone has seen this. It alls sounds very cryptic but very interesting

I don't have an hour Care to summarise? Pretty please.

 

[alwaysgreen]

You can't get much more black and white than what is clearly stated in Quinns Accounting blog, as FF has posted above.

So if ASIC are going to do their proper duty as required per law legislated by the Aust Fed Gov't.

Then either CitiCorp Nominees or the "beneficial owner"
should file a Form 603 - "Becoming a Substantial Holder" (legally required under ASX constant disclosure rules when an entity begins to hold over 5% of a publicly listed ASX Company).

Form 604 is then required for ANY "Change of Interests of a Substantial Holder", under constant disclosure rules.

Form 605 is required upon "Ceasing to be a Substantial Holder" as in moving below the 5% holding threshold.

Next move for non compliance Commonwealth Ombudsman or Fed MP(s).

Thanks for your diligence FF

Playing devils advocate, what if they had convinced a large number of entities to all buy in at just below the 5% threshold. This is a possibility right? Seems unlikely but possible.

 

[Fact Finder]

Playing devils advocate, what if they had convinced a large number of entities to all buy in at just below the 5% threshold. This is a possibility right? Seems unlikely but possible.

If evidence existed that this were the case then they would meet the threshold for related parties over which one party has informal/unofficial control and 5% would be exceeded.

If they were clever they would defeat the system.

My opinion only DYOR
FF

AKIDA BALLISTA

 

[Proga]

So what Third Party License do you think BRN purchased and from whom ???

BRN is using XiLinx's FPGA in its accelerator. Might be for that??

 

[alwaysgreen]

I called him out on twitter. Let's see if we get a response

No response and the article hasn't been updated.

Granted, today was a public holiday.

 

[Moonshot]

Playing devils advocate, what if they had convinced a large number of entities to all buy in at just below the 5% threshold. This is a possibility right? Seems unlikely but possible.

There are only a few major custodians in the market, Citi being one of them - their services are used by a large number of brokers and investors (including funds). As such there are likely a large number of beneficial owners of BRN shares…these shares would be held in a nominee company such as Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd

Assets under custody reach $4.7t

Clearstream, Netwealth and Citigroup are the winners in the custody space, all increasing their assets under custody by 20% or more in the last six months.

superreview.moneymanagement.com.au

 

[Proga]

May have been already posted. I found the 2nd half of the article more interesting

'Moore's Law's dead,' Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says in justifying gaming-card price hike

Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Jensen Huang on Wednesday said he thinks it's going to be "a pretty terrific Q4 for Ada," the company's next-generation chip...

www.marketwatch.com

 

[Diogenese]

BRN is using XiLinx's FPGA in its accelerator. Might be for that??

Hi Proga,

BrainChip used Xilink's FPGA in 2017 for the now superceded BrainChip Accelerator:

https://brainchip.com/brainchip-int...n-of-neuromorphic-computing-brainchip-120917/

BrainChip Holdings Ltd. announced the release of its hardware acceleration board, BrainChip Accelerator.​

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 09/12/17 —
BrainChip Holdings Ltd. (ASX: BRN)
...
The processing is done by six BrainChip Accelerator cores in a Xilinx Kintex Ultrascale field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

 

[JK200SX]

There are only a few major custodians in the market, Citi being one of them - their services are used by a large number of brokers and investors (including funds). As such there are likely a large number of beneficial owners of BRN shares…these shares would be held in a nominee company such as Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd

Assets under custody reach $4.7t

Clearstream, Netwealth and Citigroup are the winners in the custody space, all increasing their assets under custody by 20% or more in the last six months.

superreview.moneymanagement.com.au

Citi's holdings will be higher when top 20 is released at next 4C. I first posted the mutual fund and institutional ownership breakdown on Aug30, and since then a number od funds have increased their holdings.

Institutional ownership:

MSN

Mutual fund ownership:

MSN

 

[JoMo68]

Me too as they were a bit dismissive towards some aspects of Akida.

Yeh, I thought so too.

 

[Learning]

Citi's holdings will be higher when top 20 is released at next 4C. I first posted the mutual fund and institutional ownership breakdown on Aug30, and since then a number od funds have increased their holdings.

Institutional ownership:

MSN

Mutual fund ownership:

MSN

And these look like US base Mutual Fund holders.
Or is your data more current?

BrainChip Holdings Ltd (BRN.AX) stock major holders – Yahoo Finance

Find out the direct holders, institutional holders and mutual fund holders for BrainChip Holdings Ltd (BRN.AX).

au.finance.yahoo.com

Update:

College Retirement Equities Funds Stocks Accounts are Managed by TIAA Financial Services
And is also Carnegie College University retirement programs.

Carnegie Mellon University | Retirement Benefits

www.tiaa.org

So in my opinion, Carnegie College University are so excited about the University Ai Programs, they actually brought BRN shares for their retirement. Or told the College Retirement Equities Funds about Brainchip

Learning.
It's great to be a shareholder 🏖.

 

[Xray1]

Hi Proga,

BrainChip used Xilink's FPGA in 2017 for the now superceded BrainChip Accelerator:

https://brainchip.com/brainchip-int...n-of-neuromorphic-computing-brainchip-120917/

BrainChip Holdings Ltd. announced the release of its hardware acceleration board, BrainChip Accelerator.​

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 09/12/17 —
BrainChip Holdings Ltd. (ASX: BRN)
...
The processing is done by six BrainChip Accelerator cores in a Xilinx Kintex Ultrascale field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

What I am thinking of, as by way of an example is ... Could it be possible that say someone like Mercedes Benz or even any other BRN customer like NASA etc etc, might want the next generation of Akida to be able to take over the management of almost all of the other senors and vehicle operations systems in hand together with another system supplier... thus requiring Akida to obtain/purchase a third party licence from such other supplier, that can accomplish such an end result .... IMO, ... Potentially two systems running in tandum.

Can BRN disclose the origin of this newly acquired third party Licence or are we going to hear the old NDA line.