True North has 1 million neurons and 256 million synapses. The human brain has 100 billion neurons and up to 150 trillion synapses. IBM says it can program the new chip to understand difficult problems and then solve them as humans would. The company says the True North chip could be used as a brain for 38 robots. It can also be used for controlling new kinds of wheelchairs or for recording conversations 39 several people and then making a printed record of those conversations.