IBM Touts 'Brain-Inspired' Chip

Representatives from IBM gathered today with members of Congress to celebrate development of a neurosynaptic computer chip -- a chip meant to mimic the skills of the human brain.

The chip was developed with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. IBM said the agency has contributed $53 million to the effort since 2008.

The IBM-built chip integrates memory and computing power, just as the human brain does. At today's event on Capitol Hill, Dharmendra Modha, who founded the cognitive computing group at IBM Research, said the effort sought to mine mother nature.

"The long-term goal of the project is to actually build literally a brain in a box," he added.

Now, Modha said, IBM and its partners are weighing applications for the technology, from home health care to monitoring forests or oceans. "In some sense, this really marks a very significant moment," he told reporters after the event.