Jacqueline Ntaka, [email protected]
IT sounds like the plot of a science fiction film, but it’s real. An Australian start-up called Cortical Labs is selling a device known as the CL1, a computer powered by living human brain cells. These aren’t taken from anyone’s brain. Instead, they’re grown from skin or blood samples donated by adults, reprogrammed into stem cells and then developed into neurons.
Each CL1 contains around 200 000 of these neurons sitting on an electrode array. Software sends electrical signals into the network, the neurons respond, and the system treats those responses as computation.
The reason this works is surprisingly simple: neurons and computer chips both communicate through electricity. Traditional computers move electrical signals through silicon and metal circuits,
while neurons pass signals to one another through synapses. Thanks to advances in stem-cell technology, scientists can now grow these cells in the lab and keep them alive for months inside sealed life-support systems.
Then things became even stranger. Using Cortical Labs’ API, an independent developer connected the neurons to Doom, the legendary first-person shooter game. Within days, the cells had learned to play.
Before picturing a tiny gamer trapped in a dish, it’s worth managing expectations. According to the company’s chief scientist, the neurons play “like a beginner who’s never seen a computer”. Even so, they appear to learn from feedback, seek out enemies and fire at targets.
That’s a remarkable sentence to write in 2026. The data-centre side of the story is still in its infancy. Cortical Labs currently operates a prototype facility in Melbourne housing around 120 CL1 units, while a larger site is planned for Singapore. The company’s long-term ambition is to scale to around 1 000 units. For now, the much-publicised “racks of brains” are closer to a laboratory experiment than a commercial computing platform.
So why pursue this at all? The answer is energy. The company’s CEO claims each CL1 consumes less power than a handheld calculator. For comparison, the human brain operates on roughly 20 watts, while modern AI data centres are consuming increasing amounts of electricity and placing pressure on power grids around the world. If biological computing can be scaled successfully, it could fundamentally change the economics of computing.
But this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable. Cortical Labs maintains there is no evidence that neurons grown in a dish possess any form of consciousness. Without the structures found in a complete brain, and without pain receptors, the cells cannot feel pain and are unlikely to have any subjective experience. That remains the prevailing scientific view.
Yet some ethicists are urging caution. A recent Boston Globe opinion piece argued that consciousness may be rooted in basic sensations such as pleasure and pain, which evolved long before humans appeared. If that turns out to be true, then living neural tissue could raise ethical questions that are very different from those posed by today’s artificial intelligence systems.
The problem is that nobody has a definitive test for consciousness. We cannot prove these neurons are aware, but neither can we prove they are not.
As often happens with emerging technology, the industry is being built first and the rules are catching up later.
That leads to the bigger question. For the first time, human biological tissue is becoming a commercial computing product with a price tag. A CL1 currently sells for around US$35 000.
If the technology succeeds, it could deliver dramatically more efficient and environmentally-friendly computing. If our assumptions about these neural systems are wrong, however, we may find ourselves building an industry around something we do not fully understand and cannot properly measure.
Right now, it’s just a dish of cells that’s bad at Doom. The decisions we make while it still seems harmless may set the precedent for a future in which it is far more powerful and far more consequential.
l Jacqueline Ntaka is the CEO of Mviyo Technologies, a local technology company specialising in custom software development, mobile applications and data analytics solutions. She can be contacted at [email protected].
