It is an unprecedented milestone
I imagine a future where Artificial Intelligence not only simulates the human brain, but is literally built with living brain cells, for better or worse I still don't know, but I can assure you that that future has begun now, the Australian company Cortical Labs has just launched the CL1, the world's first commercial biological computer.
This is an unprecedented milestone in the fusion between biology and technology, creating a more fluid adaptive and energy efficient form of intelligence than any AI developed so far, the CL1 was officially revealed on March 2, 2025 in Barcelona and its arrival on the market promises to transform areas such as medical research, drug discovery, even the future of robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
It will pave the way for a more biological Artificial Intelligence
Unlike traditional silicon-based AI chips, the CL1 incorporates neural networks formed by human brain cells grown in the laboratory, these networks are dynamic, capable of adjusting and learning quickly, making the system much more efficient and adaptable than any existing artificial intelligence.
What this means in practice.
Imagine a system that not only learns from prior training, like current AI models, but also through continuous experience, just like a human brain, this is exactly what the CL1 does, it can create new neural connections in real time, processing information fluidly.
It operates through what Cortical Labs calls synthetic biological intelligence, combining living neuronal cells with life-support hardware and an electrode system allowing neurons to communicate and adapt as they interact with the stimuli received.
Which is more powerful, the CL1 or a common AI chip.
The CL1 according to the company, Cortical Labs engineers claim that the CL1 outperforms interim AI chips because it learns more efficiently and consumes much less power, to give you an idea a single CL1 network uses approximately 1000 Watts of energy, while a traditional infrastructure requires thousands of times more to achieve similar performance.
6 years ago Cortical Labs made history by developing the Dish Brain, a system that combined living neurons with an electronic chip and was able to learn to play Pong, now the technology has evolved into something much greater, a marketable bio computer, scientists discovered that biological neurons look for predictable and energetically efficient patterns to respond to stimuli and in CL1 these cells are grown in the laboratory and integrated into Hardware that allows them to interact with computer systems and the result is a form of adaptive intelligence capable of solve problems dynamically, without depending on pre-programmed algorithms.
Cortical Labs wants to democratize this technology. In addition to selling the CL1 for $35,000, the company will also offer remote access to the technology via the cloud, this means that any researcher in the world will be able to use the CL1 without the need for physical hardware, opening possibilities for innovative experiments.
The advances of CL1 raise intriguing questions, if traditional AI is already powerful, what happens when we combine biology and technology in an integrated way, could a system like CL1 develop a rudimentary consciousness, how to guarantee the ethics and control of this technology, there are many questions and according to the company they are already working on regulatory guidelines to guarantee the safe and responsible use of CL1, however, as with traditional AI the applications and consequences of this Innovation can be unpredictable.
