Swiss company develops CPUs from lab-grown human brains & the internet is horrified

Imagine a computer that uses human brain cells instead of an artificial processor to operate. That’s exactly what Swiss FinalSpark, has created and select research institutions can already rent them out for $500 a month.

FinalSpark, a Swiss start-up, has developed a “neuroplatform” which lets you remotely access 16 lab-grown human brain organoids. It’s been up and running 24/7 for the past four years, to enable researchers to conduct remote experiments on real neurons.

FinalSpark told Tom’s Hardware that its Neuroplatform is capable of learning and processing information and “consumes a million times less power than traditional digital processors”. In a research paper published on Frontiers, FinalSpark claims that “training a single LLM like GPT-3, a precursor to GPT-4, approximately required 10 GWh, which is about 6,000 times the energy a European citizen uses per year.”

The Swiss company’s goal is to develop a bioprocessor. Its platform has four multi-electrode arrays (MEA), each capable of accommodating four organoids and eight electrodes per organoid.

Around thirty universities have already expressed interest in using the neuroplatform. However, the start-up has only given access to its remote computing platform to nine institutions, and they are asked to subscribe for $500 per user per month.

While the idea behind a human brain CPU is innovative, the internet isn’t exactly thrilled. “So lab-grown brainchunks do neural computing better than silicon. Got it,” wrote one reddit user. “This is the way forward, just don’t forget to feed your PC with glucose from time to time,” another user said jokingly.

“This is objectively horrific,” wrote one X user. “Great, so, reincarnating into a computer chip is now on the table, cool cool,” said another. “Holy Sh*t, it’s almost just the movie The Matrix. Absolutely insane,” wrote X user @KeeganSpinBray.

While the neuroplatform remains accessible to select institutions, there is no indicator that organoid access will land in a consumer computer near you any time soon.