16 lab-grown brains run world’s first ‘living computer’ in Switzerland
Published in Artificial Intelligence, Bioprinting.
While training AI models consumes 6,000 times more than a European city, bioprocessor promise drastic savings in energy expenditures.
Swiss technology firm Final Spark has successfully launched Neuroplatform, the world’s first bioprocessing platform where human brain organoids (lab-grown miniaturized versions of organs) perform computational tasks instead of silicon chips.
The first such facility hosts the processing prowess of 16 brain organoids, which the company claims uses a million times less power than their silicon counterparts.
Silicon-based chips, which have revolutionized computing by making it smaller and easier to scale, are also known for their inefficiencies.
The transistors of these chips are energy hoggers, and as applications such as developing artificial intelligence (AI) models increase, the impact of these inefficiencies is also becoming more glaring.
According to Final Spark’s estimates, training the popular large language model GPT-3 that powered ChatGPT in its initial days alone consumed 10 GWh of energy. This is a whopping 6,000 times more energy than an average European city consumes in an entire year.
Replacing silicon chips with bioprocessors could lead to drastic energy savings. Final Spark allows research labs to experience the power of biological processors on the Neuroplatform.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/worlds-first-living-computer-switzerland