2024 WA Award
Peter van der Made, founder and CTO of Brainchip Inc., was announced as the recipient of the 2024 WA Pearcey Entrepreneur Award at the 33rd WAITTA Incite Awards in Perth on Friday 19th July 2024.
Peter has been working on chip design since the 1980s. Inspired by neural processing in the human brain, Peter founded BrainChip in 2004 and has pioneered some groundbreaking AI-related learning and problem-solving innovations. With the sudden rise in AI, this approach is offering an alternative to conventional AI which is CPU-hungry, slow to learn and needing to be cloud-based. With BrainChip's Akida neural processor, small devices can efficiently use AI and quickly learn and respond without needing internet connectivity. Applications are wide and varied including security, transport, medicine, and space travel.
Pia Turcinov, who accepted the Award on Peter's behalf, commented,
I first met Peter in late 2012 when he joined what was then known as the Innovation Centre of WA as an incubator tenant. At the time, he was in the early stages of developing BrainChip and the Akida technology. His visionary boldness in imagining a completely different approach to chip design was fascinating and incredibly inspiring to watch.
Peter's ability to transform this vision and build BrainChip into an ASX-listed company with a market value of around $500M is to be celebrated and showcased. There are not many WA-born companies outside of the resources sector that can demonstrate this outsized achievement on the global stage."
Peter Van Der Made
Peter van der Made has been at the forefront of computer innovation for 45 years.
In the 1980s, Peter designed a high resolution, high speed color graphics Anatomy chip for IBM PC graphics. In the 1990s, Peter invented and developed a computer immune system at vCIS Technology where he served as CTO, and then Chief Scientist when it was acquired by Internet Security Systems, and subsequently IBM.
Peter was always fascinated by neural processing and thus began his pioneering journey into neuromorphic artificial intelligence (AI). The word neuromorphic means "like the brain" and the human brain was Peter's inspiration for designing a novel and innovative AI technology that replicates the way the human brain processes sensory data.
In 2004, Peter founded BrainChip in Perth to develop an AI processor. Peter's neuromorphic design overturns more than 75 years of chip design based almost exclusively on "Von Neumann architecture", which is the common design template for virtually all current modern silicon chips used in data processing. The secret to BrainChip's Akida neuromorphic processor is that it works on a "Spiking Neural Network" or SNN, which is an event-based neural processor. This means Akida (which means "spike" in Greek) only consumes power when it processes new data and detects a spike. The combination of low-power and low-CPU AI is ideal for on-board systems and mobile devices.
In 2011, When Peter realised that he needed access to additional capital to complete his vision of bring Akida into silicon, he personally funded multiple trips to the US to meet and talk to Venture Capitalists and technology investors. After multiple rejections, Peter returned to Australia and decided to take BrainChip public through a back-door listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). As the company's largest shareholder and founding CEO, Peter personally took on the administrative burden of running a publicly listed company, raising capital, recruiting staff and driving research and development.
In 2013 Peter published a book, Higher Intelligence, which describes the architecture of the brain from a computer science perspective. He is now working on a follow-up book that goes deeper into neuromorphic architecture and focusses on the algorithms that are performed in the neocortex.
In 2021, after more than 15 years of intense R&D and prototypes, BrainChip became the world's first company to produce a commercially available neuromorphic AI product, the first generation AKD1000 chip. During this time, Peter established BrainChip offices in Perth, the US, India and France.
Since then, BrainChip has continued to expand its operations and has now released two further iterations of its Akida neuromorphic technology, Akida 1500 and Akida 2.0, further extending its lead as the world's leader in neuromorphic AI. Today, BrainChip has over 70 employees and a market capitalisation of over $500M.
Peter has also been awarded the AI Hardware 2021 Innovator Award Winner and has been published in the AI Time Journal, as well as Forbes Councils. Over 18 patents have been granted for Peter's inventions.
Technology
Akida is a breakthrough technology of global importance. The Akida neuromorphic processor processes sensory data at two orders of magnitude less power than an equivalent chip (milliwatts of power (1,000ths of a watt) vs. watts of power). This difference has become a major point of bifurcation in the global AI industry, where the prevailing model is for data generated by billions Internet of Things (IoT) devices is to be uploaded and processed in the Cloud, and then sent back to the device. This model has seen a massive expansion of Cloud-based data processing globally, and AI is now the world's second largest consumer of electricity (behind cryptocurrency). The rampant growth in Cloud-based AI data processing is unsustainable.
For AI, the Akida neuromorphic technology uses only a tiny fraction of power. It is ideally suited to what is known as Edge AI applications, where data is processed at or near the sensor on the device, rather than uploaded to the Cloud. Edge AI applications are growing quickly as consumers look for more sustainable and responsible alternatives to the existing power-hungry chip design. Peter's work through BrainChip has made an enormous contribution to advancing the adoption of Edge AI applications and demonstrating that it was indeed possible for data processing to occur close to or at The Edge, without loss of performance and with a greatly reduced power budget. This proof of concept didn't exist before BrainChip.
At the application level, BrainChip is currently working with a broad range of WA-based organisations and businesses to expand the adoption of neuromorphic AI. In particular, the idea of leveraging neuromorphic AI in locations and environments which have traditionally been impossible for internet-connected Cloud-based AI to operate, such as underground, sub-sea, remote rural areas and even in space.
Today there is a spacecraft, Optimus-1, built by the Space machines Company and controlled by an AI-powered "brain" developed by Australian space tech company Ant61, in low-earth orbit with a BrainChip Akida neuromorphic AI processor driving the onboard brain. This is not only a great achievement for the Australian space industry but opens opportunities for Brainchip and other Australian companies to engage with international space agencies involved in commercial space exploration. Peter's lifetime of work and his contribution to the advancement of neuromorphic AI has beyond doubt had a significant impact on the WA, national and international ICT industry.
BrainChip is now a valued ecosystem partner of many of the world's largest and most influential technology companies and has signed up some of the world's leading universities, including UWA, to join its BrainChip University AI Accelerator program. The purpose of the program is to develop relationships with key educational institutions around the world at the cutting edge of AI technology research and innovation, and to collaborate of projects, provide access to our technology and potentially to recruit graduates to work for Brainchip and develop careers in the AI industry.
To date seven leading international universities have signed up to the Brainchip University AI Accelerator Program, including most recently the university of Western Australia. This is especially important, as many of the staff currently or previously employed at the BrainChip Research Institute in Perth are UWA graduates and their expertise and experience is being retained, rather than leaving WA. Brainchip has also employed a number of interns from participating universities, both at the BrainChip Research Institute in Perth and at the company's head office at Laguna Hills in southern California. These fortunate interns gain valuable experience by being exposed to real-world business activities and gain a better understanding of neuromorphic technology, which will influence the focus of future research and innovation.
Recognition
In early 2024, Peter retired from day-to-day operations as the CTO and executive with BrainChip, but remains a non-executive director and Chair of the BrainChip Scientific Advisory Board, and remains the largest shareholder. Peter combines the vision, grit, and determination that define a great founder and entrepreneur, making the impossible possible.
Peter is an outstanding role model and inspiration to younger researchers, scientists and technologists. Before BrainChip and Peter van der Made, Western Australia did not have any significant local AI industry. Today, through and largely because of Peter and BrainChip, Perth is now recognised as one of the world's leading centres for AI technology innovation. In an industry dominated by Silicon Valley, Peter has put Perth on the AI map globally. None of these achievements would have been possible without the enormous vision and fortitude of Peter van der Made, who for most of Brainchip's history personally carried the risks and the burdens of success and failure on his own shoulders.
Accepting the 2024 WA Pearcey Entrepreneur Award via video, Peter said,
"I'm deeply honoured to accept the Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award for WA. BrainChip is renowned globally as a pioneer in neuromorphic processing hardware for artificial intelligence, a testament to the dedication of our incredible team. Starting from our roots at the Curtin University Innovation Centre, we have forged partnerships with major corporations worldwide, achieving milestones that once seemed beyond our reach. This award is a testament to the collective efforts and unwavering commitment of everyone at BrainChip."
