World's First "Synthetic Biological Intelligence" Runs on Living Human Cells
mhajicek writes:
https://newatlas.com/brain/cortical-bioengineered-intelligence/
"The world's first "biological computer" that fuses human brain cells with silicon hardware to form fluid neural networks has been commercially launched, ushering in a new age of AI technology. The CL1, from Australian company Cortical Labs, offers a whole new kind of computing intelligence - one that's more dynamic, sustainable and energy efficient than any AI that currently exists - and we will start to see its potential when it's in users' hands in the coming months.
Known as a Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI), Cortical's CL1 system was officially launched in Barcelona on March 2, 2025, and is expected to be a game-changer for science and medical research. The human-cell neural networks that form on the silicon "chip" are essentially an ever-evolving organic computer, and the engineers behind it say it learns so quickly and flexibly that it completely outpaces the silicon-based AI chips used to train existing large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT."
[...] Inside the CL1 system, lab-grown neurons are placed on a planar electrode array - or, as Kagan explained, "basically just metal and glass." Here, 59 electrodes form the basis of a more stable network, offering the user a high degree of control in activating the neural network. This SBI "brain" is then placed in a rectangular life-support unit, which is then connected to a software-based system to be operated in real time.
"A simple way to describe it would be like a body in a box, but it has filtration for waves, it has where the media is stored, it has pumps to keep everything circulating, gas mixing, and of course temperature control," Kagan explained.
In the lab, Cortical is assembling these units to construct a first-of-its-kind biological neural network server stack, housing 30 individual units that each contain the cells on their electrode array, which is expected to go online in the coming months.
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