00:00This is an extremely tiny computer, consisting of 8 electrodes.
00:07What if I told you it wasn't connected to a silicon board, but rather to brain cells?
00:12This is what researchers with Swiss biotech startup FinalSpark say is their new biocomputer,
00:17one that mimics the neural network of the brain and could be the future of computing.
00:21The biocomputer doesn't simply use brains as a template, rather FinalSpark has lab-grown
00:26human brain cells to implement into the device.
00:29Each of these 16 organoids, as they call them, are connected to the electrodes in a
00:33fluid system, which feeds the cells.
00:35It's a wild concept, however the biocomputer uses significantly less energy as it mimics
00:40the efficiency of the brain, with the researchers saying it consumes a million times less power
00:45than traditional digital processors.
00:47For reference, FinalSpark says that to train an AI model like ChatGPT, it required some
00:5210 gigawatt hours, the equivalent of 6,000 times the energy usage of a single EU citizen
00:58for a year.
00:59ScienceAlert reports that the human brain only uses the equivalent of 0.3 kilowatt hours
01:04per day, a fraction of a fraction of that.
01:07FinalSpark says that its biocomputer can currently be kept alive and computing for 100 days,
01:12with scientists already using its organoid brain for research purposes.
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