BENGALURU: He’s bet $50 million of his $1.5 billion net worth on brain, and he’s convinced there will be a big payoff.When Kris Gopalakrishnan, the now-retired Infosys cofounder, put one chunk of his net worth on research that aims to create the next computing revolution — computers modeled on brain functioning — he was going off the beaten track. HNI backing of new ventures tend to be more conservative and few take big bets on frontier research.His funding of brain research, through $36 million for Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as well as funding six chairs in the institute and IIT-Madras, puts Gopalakrishnan in good company. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Google cofounder Sergey Brin have backed similar moonshots. And the US government is backing a $ 300-million ‘Brain Initiative’.The logic behind the moonshot is clear to Gopalakrishnan, who spoke extensively to ET — put in serious and early money in frontier research and be one of the leaders when the revolution happens. As the Infy co-founder sees it, India could host an IT revolution only because some islands of excellence had taken to computing far before software coding had become a globally tradable service.IIT-Madras, Gopalakrishnan’s alma mater, got the second-largest mainframe computer in Asia in 1973. "IIT-Kanpur and Madras got computer science departments staffed with some of the best professors and they taught us computer science early on," he said. So, when the PC revolution happened in the 80s, India was ready."We benefited from that and we created 3 million jobs, $100 billion of exports and a $120-billion world class industry. We could be at the beginning of this industry." he said.Early backing for brain-inspired computing can similarly put India in a pole position. "This provides a great opportunity for us in India to participate in innovation all the way from research to creating new enterprises and businesses" – is how Gopalakrishnan puts it. Computing inspired by the brain’s functioning works on a very simple proposition — computers capable of parallel processing can handle far bigger data than today’s computers, which work on a sequential basis.Today’s computers have an arithmetic/logic unit, a memory unit and a control unit – this is called the Von Neumann architecture. When doing a job, these units are fired one after the other. Massive amounts of data, however, are best done with parallel processing, which is how a brain works.The research challenge, is therefore, to make computers that work like a brain does. A brain is also what scientists call a self-learning unit, it adapts to new environment. Today’s computers work on the programming fed into them. Making computers that can adapt to environment is the other aspect of brain-inspired computing. Globally, the logic behind such research is the recognition that data volumes are growing and so are maintenance costs of interconnected computer systems. Brain-inspired computing is one of the frontier research programmes that include genetic storage of data and shifting from silicon to graphene as the basic material for computing.A conversation Gopalakrishnan had with IISc director P Balram last year after his retirement from Infosys inspired his $50-million bet on brain. "We talked about (computer network) maintenance costs and systems that can learn, new models of computing to look at big data," Gopalakrishnan says.His funding of the IISc research programme will ensure there’s a cutting edge laboratory with around 45 scientists working in it, and the capability to collaborate with American universities like Carnegie Mellon, which is also hosting similar projects. To establish a research partnership between Carnegie University and the IISc, Gopalakrishnan made a $1.8-million grant as well.Gopalakrishnan’s bet, if it pays off, will likely find a very receptive business environment, because both companies and start-ups are already working in related fields.IBM unveiled TrueNorth, a neuromorphic chip which has a million neurons and 256 million synapses, in 2014. The chip, inspired by brain functioning, was the result of an 8-year collaboration between IBM’s research labs, universities and government agencies.Brain research’s other big benefit is in healthcare, for example, tackling diseases like Alzheimer’s better. Vamsi Chandra Kasivajjala, CEO & Co-Founder of Enlightiks, a deep learning startup based in Bengaluru and Palo Alto, California, runs a company that provides predictive analytics and deep learning platform and services for the healthcare sector.It’s working with many hospitals across the United States and India to collect patient data on diseases including Alzheimer’s and find ways to prolong the onset of the disease.So, India is not a stranger to frontier research on brain. "There are pockets of this research happening in India. My goal has been to integrate these things and bring these people together and that's what I’m trying to do," says Gopalakrishnan. His funding has also brought in Partha Mitra, one of the scientists working on the US government’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (the acronym works out to BRAIN).BRAIN seeks to map every neuron like the genome project mapped every gene. Mitra will hold the Professor Mahabala Distinguished Chair in Computational Brain Research at IITMadras, one of the chairs funded by Gopalakrishnan. Whatever happens, one thing is already guaranteed: Kris Gopalakrishnan’s $50 million has helped put plenty of brains behind India’s brain project.