This kind of work has applications in neuroscience to model specific parts of the brain. Blue Brain is just such an effort. I'd also be confident in saying this

This kind of work has applications in neuroscience to model specific parts of the brain. Blue Brain is just such an effort. I'd also be confident in saying this thing isn't going to become intelligent any time soon. We also don't have any idea how the physical structure of the brain maps to its functional characteristics (pattern recognition, consciousness.) This work may help us explore that. It's a brain simulation, maybe, but it's definitely not a 'mind' simulation at all.