Singapore's Biological Data Center Uses Brain Cells for Computing

Researchers at the National University of Singapore are contributing to a data center that runs on not computer chips, but brain cells. The founders say that the biological data center prototype has the potential to be more energy efficient than computers. Nicholas Ng with more.

These flashing lights aren't indicating that a computer's processors are hard at work.

Instead, they're measuring activity in these brain cells being stimulated on a chip. Researchers are able to collect the cells' responses to their prompts and use it as a form of computing. While it might sort of be thinking,

researchers say the setup probably doesn't have a consciousness.

What we have here is a very simple biological neural network that has no more than 200,000 neurons, and they're mostly flat.

These CL1 units form a prototype for Singapore's first biological data center, and it could be far more energy efficient than usual. Each CL1 draws 30 watts per unit, comparable to a household appliance.

Conventional data center chips can use hundreds of watts.

They also use very little amount of data, and this energy and data efficiency point to a very interesting application in the physical AI space as one of the use cases that we, we have, you know, caring about a lot today, um, because if you think about a robot or a drone, A, they have to carry their own power supply,

so there is a very tight energy budget that they have to adhere to.

Apart from AI, the CL1 units offered new opportunities to medical researchers at the National University of Singapore.

The CL1 keeps neurons in tightly controlled environments and sets them up so that they can be studied in incredible detail.

That also gives researchers the opportunity to study neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

And since the neurons they use for their studies can be grown from a specific individual, it opens the possibility of tailoring treatments specifically to them.

We are hoping to use them for, to understand disease mechanisms, to, to do some drug screening, and to understand how, uh, particular combinations of drugs can actually increase the function, uh, increase or normalize the functionality of these networks.

Professor Patani's team also wants to see how other kinds of brain cells can be used in computing.