Neural Grids?

Now that my classes are ending, I'm getting more time to think about my own projects, and I have another idea. This may already have been implemented, especially by another name. I'll call it a "Neural Grid", though maybe this is what a standard grid computing architecture does...

And the idea? In my work with neural networks I noticed that depending on the initial weight settings, some networks only require a small amount of training cycles to work well. I haven't had the time to analyze how close multiple attempts would be around the correct pattern, but it's possible they could be close. It would be interesting to have multiple computers testing networks at the same time and then combining their results as a committee to decide what their final answer is.

While thinking about this, another thought popped into my head: what about treating each computer as an individual neural network, in charge of detecting certain features or potentially working together to find patterns. The various computers could be interconnected and, like neurons in a neural network, treat each others' responses with various weights.

This could be akin to building a global "brain" that trains itself to detect special types of patterns. Where could that lead? Hmm... If I make it in Java I can set it up on multiple here in my university's labs, without anyone knowing.