National research institutes, but also software giants such as Microsoft and Google, are involved. There is talk of funding to the tune of three billion dollars.

The project is not intended to compete with the recently approved European Human Brain Project, which has half a billion euros in funding and takes a different approach: not to map the human brain, but rather to simulate its functions. However, both projects are pursuing the goal of understanding human diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s and perhaps to lay down the foundations for future drug developments.

Both these mammoth projects will require unparalleled computing capacities. The European project’s simulation will be run on Europe’s fastest supercomputer “Juqueen”, recently installed at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. The supercomputer can perform almost six quadrillion (6.000.000.000.000.000) computations per second, making it 100.000 times faster than a modern personal computer.

Sources:
http://www.biotechnologie.de/BIO/Navigation/DE/root,did=157174.html