At a time when the PC function as super computers, and carry out inhuman feats of calculation, some of the most advanced researchers over Silicon Valley some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley suggest that there are still areas in which a PCs can not match the ability to solve problems as our own brains.

But recently, in a a conference about supercomputing in Portland, Oregon, scientists Groupof IBM Almaden Research Lab and other institutions in the Bay Area plan to announce two major events that could deriv to someday have a new kind of computer — especially one that uses hardware and software designed to imitate what is within our brain.

 Researchers from IBM say they have performed a computer simulation that matches the scale and complexity of a cat’s brain, and project members from IBM and Stanford have developed an algorithm for mapping the human brain at new levels of detail. Eventually, these investigations will allow will help to build a computer that replicates the more complex working of a human brain.

Investigations are yet initial but one day this reserch could yield applications for business, science or even the military. The simulation, for example, did not exactly mimic what a real cat does in catching a mouse. But it surpassed earlier efforts that simulated.

Researchers used an IBM supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab to model the movement of data through a structure with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses, which allowed them to see how information “percolates” through a system that’s comparable to a feline cerebral cortex.

The research is part of a federally program that tray to study what’s known as cognitive computing, starting with what IBM project manager Dharmendra Modha calls “reverse-engineering the human brain,” or designing a new computer by first getting a better understanding of how the brain works.

A key difference between human brains and traditional computers, is that current computers are designed on a model that differentiates between processing and storing data, which can lead to a lag in updating information. The brain works on a more complex physical structure that can integrate and react to a constant stream of sights, sounds and other sensory information.

The new tecnology could act as a cognitive computer that could analyze a flood of constantly updated data from trading floors, banking institutions and even real estate markets around the world — sorting through the noise to identify key trends and their consequences. Or one that could evaluate pollution, weather and ocean data from real-time sensors around the world, to monitor global water supplies.

A cognitive computer might also help soldiers analyze and react to chaotic events on a battlefield. The research is the result of a $5 million grant from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which also funded the forerunner of the Internet. But like that earlier work, scientists say the study of cognitive computing could lead in many unexpected directions.

Stanford psychology professor Brian Wandell, who studies neuroscience, was on the team that developed a new algorithm for interpreting data from a kind of noninvasive brain scan. Using supercomputers, the team has used that data to measure and map the structure of axons, or thin white threads that help carry brain signals.