IBM on Thursday disclosed a program under which it has partnered with five research universities to develop computers that operate in a manner similar to the human brain.

IBM said its Cognitive Computing project aims to help companies deal with an explosion in digital data that threatens to slow business processes to a crawl. "Without the ability to monitor, analyze, and react to this new information in real time, the majority of its value may be lost," IBM said in a statement.

Today's computers are powerful number crunchers but don't do a good job of dealing with ambiguities or integrating information from multiple sources into a holistic picture of an event. IBM hopes to change that.

"A cognitive computer, acting as a 'global brain,' could quickly and accurately put together the disparate pieces of this complex puzzle and help people make good decisions rapidly," IBM said. For instance, such a machine could integrate data from consumers' credit reports, tax returns, pay stubs, and mortgage statements in order to allow lending companies to make instant decisions on loan eligibility.

Under its Cognitive Computing plan, IBM and its research partners will look closely at the brain's internal structure and functions and attempt to emulate those patterns on silicon and transistors. IBM said nanoscale devices could be used to mimic neurons and synapses -- key structures that help carry electrical impulses through the brain.

"We believe that our cognitive computing initiative will help shape the future of computing in a significant way, bringing to bear new technologies we haven't even begun to imagine" said Josephine Cheng, an IBM Fellow who is VP over the company's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif.

IBM's partners include Stanford University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Columbia University Medical Center, Cornell, and University of California at Merced. The team has been awarded a $4.9 million grant from the federal government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.