---
title: "Scientists Preparing to Simulate Human Brain on Supercomputer"
description: "Researchers at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany are working on a simulation at the scale of the entire human brain."
date: "2026-01-17"
modified: "2026-01-17"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/health-medicine/simulate-human-brain-supercomputer"
categories:
  - "Brain"
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Neuroscience and Brain"
---

# Scientists Preparing to Simulate Human Brain on Supercomputer

![Researchers at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany are working on a simulation at the scale of the entire human brain.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/simulate-human-brain-supercomputer.jpg>)
*Getty Images*

In 2024, researchers [completed the first-ever map](<https://www.science.org/content/article/complete-map-fruit-fly-brain-circuitry-unveiled>) of the circuitry of a fruit fly's brain.

Despite its diminutive size, the organ packs almost 500 feet of wiring and 54.5 million synapses into the size of a grain of sand — an astonishing feat of computational neurology research that allows scientists to better understand how signals travel throughout the brain.

And thanks to significant advances of some of the world's most capable supercomputers, researchers at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany are now aiming their sights at a far more ambitious goal: a simulation at the scale of the entire human brain.

Previous attempts, dating back a decade, like the Human Brain Project, [fell largely flat](<https://futurism.com/simulate-human-brain-fell-flat>), despite considerable government funding. But as [*New Scientist* reports](<https://www.newscientist.com/article/2510892-were-about-to-simulate-a-human-brain-on-a-supercomputer/>), the Jülich researchers think they can push things forward. The idea is to bring together several models of smaller regions of the brain with a supercomputer to run simulations of billions of firing neurons.

The team, which is being led by Jülich neurophysics professor Markus Diesmann, will leverage the Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research (JUPITER) supercomputer for their simulation.

JUPITER is currently the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world [according to the TOP500 list](<https://top500.org/lists/top500/2025/11/>), and features thousands of graphical processing units.

The team demonstrated last month that a "[spiking neural network](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09502>)" could be scaled up and run on JUPITER, effectively matching the cerebral cortex's 20 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections.

Once up and running, the simulation could be a major upgrade, Diesmann told *New Scientist*, compared to previous, much smaller simulations.

"We know now that large networks can do qualitatively different things than small ones," he said. "It’s clear the large networks are different."

At the end of the day, we're still only scratching the surface of an organ that [remains mysterious](<https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/communications-that-matter/202307/new-studies-prove-the-brain-is-still-a-mystery>) to scientists. Even simulations at the scale of a human brain will only teach us so much about how it functions.

"We can’t actually build brains," University of Sussex mathematical physics professor Thomas Nowotny told *New Scientist*. "Even if we can make simulations of the size of a brain, we can’t make simulations of the brain."

**More on brain simulations:** [*People Are Horrified by Lab-Grown Human Brains*](<https://futurism.com/health-medicine/lab-grown-human-brain-poll>)

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)