From IBM Fellow Dharmendra S Modha's Cognitive Computing Blog:
Breaking News: One Giant Leap for the SyNAPSE Team, One Small Step for Mankind
Six years ago, IBM and our university partners embarked on a quest–to build a brain–inspired machine–that at the time appeared impossible. Today, in an article published in Science, we deliver on the DARPA SyNAPSE metric of a one million neuron brain–inspired processor. The chip consumes merely 70 milliwatts and is capable of 46 billion synaptic operations per second per watt–literally a synaptic supercomputer in your palm. Here are links to IBM Press Release, DARPA Press Release, and Steve Hamm's blog.
Along the way–progressing through Phase 0, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3–we have journeyed from neuroscience to supercomputing, to a new computer architecture, to a new programming language, to algorithms, applications, and now to a new chip—TrueNorth.
A lot more at the site - their goal is as follows:
To support these algorithms at ever increasing scale, TrueNorth chips can be seamlessly tiled to create vast, scalable neuromorphic systems. In fact, we have already built systems with 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses. Our sights are now set high on the ambitious goal of integrating 4,096 chips in a single rack with 4 billion neurons and 1 trillion synapses while consuming ~4kW of power.
4 Billion Neurons is human brain capacity. This is amazing stuff.