Wild stuff. The architecture of this thing sounds pretty novel:

Three of the principle axioms of parallel machine design - memory coherence, synchronicity and determinism - have been discarded in the design without, surprisingly, compromising the ability to perform meaningful computations.

http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/architecture/

If this can do 1 billion neurons, then I guess we're 1/16th of the way to full human simulation. Or 1% there, that's cool too.