India, Aug. 29 -- The first time I witnessed a child stack blocks, I felt like I was watching a miniature computer learn. She didn't plan the tower, she felt for balance - nudged a cube this way, nudged a cube that way - and when a cube wobbled she adjusted, and all that sensing, deciding and acting folded so seamlessly together it felt like magic.

I believe engineers are trying to bottle that same instinctive interplay of sensing, memory and action in their neuromorphic computing. That is, chips and systems that don't just run algorithms but behave somewhat like a brain.

"This is not science fiction."

All over quiet labs and buzzing clean rooms, teams are moving away from the ancient von Neumann architecture - separate memory and proc...