Hyperdimensional computing: a framework for stochastic computation and symbolic AI

Abstract Hyperdimensional Computing (HDC), also known as Vector Symbolic Architectures (VSA), is a neuro-inspired computing framework that exploits high-dimensional random vector spaces. HDC uses extremely parallelizable arithmetic to provide computational solutions that balance accuracy, efficiency and robustness. The majority of current HDC research focuses on the learning capabilities of these high-dimensional spaces. However, a tangential research direction investigates the properties of these high-dimensional spaces more generally as a probabilistic model for computation. In this manuscript, we provide an approachable, yet thorough, survey of the components of HDC. To highlight the dual use of HDC, we provide an in-depth analysis of two vastly different applications. The first uses HDC in a learning setting to classify graphs. Graphs are among the most important forms of information representation, and graph learning in IoT and sensor networks introduces challenges because of the limited compute capabilities. Compared to the state-of-the-art Graph Neural Networks, our proposed method achieves comparable accuracy, while training and inference times are on average 14.6× and 2.0× faster, respectively. Secondly, we analyse a dynamic hash table that uses a novel hypervector type called circular-hypervectors to map requests to a dynamic set of resources. The proposed hyperdimensional hashing method has the efficiency to be deployed in large systems. Moreover, our approach remains unaffected by a realistic level of memory errors which causes significant mismatches for existing methods.