Great to see that BrainChip has partnered with Klepsydra Technologies to develop a heterogeneous AI runtime for the Akida neuromorphic processor.
Back in August 2024 I floated the possibility that BrainChip might be working with Klepsydra. At the time it seemed like the two companies technologies might fit really well togther, so it’s interesting to now see that collaboration formally confirmed.
As mentioned in the highlighted post below, Klepsydra has also worked with Frontgrade, European Space Agency and other aerospace programs, Their runtime software has been used for onboard satellite data processing, autonomous spacecraft operations and high-frequency sensor streams in space environments.
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From what little I understand, one of the challenges with neuromorphic chips like Akida is that they don’t usually operate on their own. In most real-world systems you tend to have several different types of processors working together (CPUs, GPUs and other AI accelerators) each doing different parts of the job. The key phrase in the announcement seems to be “heterogeneous AI runtime.” That’s where Klepsydra appears to come in.
The other thing I also noticed is the “10× more data with up to 50% less power/CPU usage” claim mentioned in the announcement. From what I can see, Klepsydra has been citing similar performance improvements in their product materials for a couple of years, with references appearing in product pages and technical briefs around 2024.
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Partnerships like this often take 12 - 24 months before a public announcement, so it wouldn’t surprise me if some level of collaboration had been happening behind the scenes for a while. Hard to know whether those performance figures are related specifically to BrainChip’s integration or simply Klepsydra’s underlying technology.
Klepsydra’s runtime appears to be designed for this kind of streaming AI architecture, which seems naturally compatible with Akida’s event-driven approach and is hopefully really well suited to applications such as robotics, autonomous drones, satellites, radar detection and industrial monitoring. I'm also hoping it links us to NASA's High Performance Space Computing chip at some point in the future.