Abstract
This October, the EU launched its Human Brain Project (HBP) with an estimated budget of €1.2 billion. It is one of the two winners of the “grand challenge” competition awarded under the EU's flagship Future and Emerging Technologies programme (the other is on the potential of graphene). The Project's goal is “to build a completely new information computing technology infrastructure for neuroscience and for brain‐related research in medicine and computing, catalysing a global collaborative effort to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities”. The HBP website claims that the Project has been formulated after consultation with three hundred experts in neuroscience and computing, but, judging by the coverage in the scientific press, many neuroscientists are sceptical. I don't think it is a matter of sour grapes for those outside the network of collaborating labs, but something more fundamental. Is the time ripe – do we know enough – to begin to build an entire human brain in silico ? And …
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