Chinese engineers announced the development of a new generation brain-like computer called “Darwin Monkey,” which can mimic the brain functions of a macaque monkey. The computer was developed by the National Key Lab of Brain Intelligence at Zhejiang University in Zhejiang Province, eastern China.
Equipped with 960 Darwin 3 chips—third-generation brain-like neural processing units independently developed by the lab—the chip array supports more than 2 billion pulsed neurons and over 100 billion synapses, making Darwin Monkey the world’s first brain-like computer that combines advanced thinking abilities with vision, hearing, language, and learning functions. It consumes about 2,000 watts of power under typical operating conditions.
The research team has successfully deployed several intelligent applications on the computer. Darwin Monkey can run the DeepSeek brain-like 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 the brains of various animals, including worms, zebrafish, mice, and macaques, offering new possibilities for brain science research.