While the benefits are clear, it is not so clear that the project would in fact outrun the pace of progress as usual.

Cloning: It is unclear to which extent the truly exceptional ability is a result of just being lucky that the random parts of the development process resulted in right kind of circuitry. I'm not even taking of nature vs nurture. Those clones won't have same fingerprints, won't have same minor blood vessel patterns, etc etc. even if the wombs were exactly identical, as long as the thermal noise differs. See also : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2691715/ - early in the process, cells create variations of a gene, so that neurons have unique IDs, and don't connect to themselves. The process, while genetic, is largely random. The clones will be bright, no doubt about it, but super geniuses, i dunno.