October 4, 2024

Eco-Intelligence: Harnessing Nature’s Computational Power

Details processing capacity of natural environment provide ideas to how environment dynamics are maintained. Credit: KyotoU/Jake Tobiyama
Kyoto University examines the computational capabilities of eco-friendly networks.
Kyoto University scientists have shown the computational power of natural environments through eco-friendly tank computing, recommending a link in between high biodiversity and high computational power, and possibly leading to novel computer types and insights into environment characteristics.
The rapid growth of neural networks and AI tools for data analysis is well documented. The information processing potential of networks found in natural communities, such as interspecies relationships, stays mostly untapped.
A recent research study brought out at Kyoto University has actually shed light on the computational abilities of communities, providing a promising opportunity for the quick advancement of AI innovations. The simulations carried out have actually verified that networks within communities, such as the interactions in between victim and predator, have efficient info processing abilities and can be utilized as a computational resource.

” We have named this method environmental tank computing,” says Kyoto Universitys lead author Masayuki Ushio.
The researchers developed two types of eco-friendly tank computing as a proof-of-concept that eco-friendly networks have computational power.
One type is a computer-based approach called in silico ecological reservoir computing, which designs hypothetical environment characteristics and mimics the system action. The 2nd is an empirical system called real-time ecological reservoir computing, which uses the real-time population characteristics of the unicellular organism Tetrahymena thermophila.
In the second technique, to confirm the computational power of a natural environmental system, Ushios group established an experimental design using Tetrahymena thermophila. After going into worths as the temperature of the culturing medium– or input information– the group gotten cell numbers as system output. The research study verified the possibility that the Tetrahymena population could make near-future forecasts of eco-friendly time series.
” Our results likewise recommend that there may be a link in between high biodiversity and high computational power, shedding light on new worths of previously unknown biodiversity,” includes Ushio, currently a principal detective at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
” A direct relationship in between a neighborhoods variety and computational capability might enhance its biodiversity quotient.”
Ecological neighborhoods process a big amount of details in real-time in a natural ecosystem, where the capacity of environmental interactions to act as an unique computing method is considerably high.
” Our brand-new computing approach may result in the innovation of unique types of computers. In developing a way to measure the details processing capacity of a natural environment, we may discover ideas to how ecosystem characteristics are preserved,” concludes Ushio.
Referral: “Computational ability of eco-friendly dynamics” by Masayuki Ushio, Kazufumi Watanabe, Yasuhiro Fukuda, Yuji Tokudome and Kohei Nakajima, 19 April 2023, Royal Society Open Science.DOI: 10.1098/ rsos.221614.