SpiNNaker is a massively parallel low power supercomputer designed to model large spiking neural networks in real time, consisting of 1 million ARM cores, each with a low instructional memory (ITCM) limit of 32K. The architectural design of the machine lends itself easily to the simulation of spiking neural networks due to its ability to send and route multiple small messages from any point on the machine to multiple other points simultaneously. It has also been used for other massively-parallel simulations.
This walkthrough will demonstrate some of the features of different applications and scripts that can be run on the machine, including the link-up with the EU Human Brain Project's Neurorobotics Platform. It will also demonstrate some of the ways that the software team runs workshops and troubleshoots problems for both new and existing users, via for example Jupyter notebooks and lab manuals.