Startup Uses Living Human Brain Cells to Build AI Chips That Train 3x Faster and Use 66% Less Energy
Summary
A San Francisco startup is growing AI chips from living human brain cells that train models 3x faster while using 66% less energy, backed by $25 million in seed funding and already in talks with major AI labs.
Key Points
- The Biological Computing Company (TBC), a San Francisco startup backed by $25 million in seed funding, is developing chips made from 100,000 to 500,000 living human neurons grown from stem cells as an energy-efficient alternative to traditional silicon for AI computing.
- TBC's biological chips encode real-world data like images and video directly through living neurons, and research shows AI models trained on biological neural responses reach peak performance three times faster, cutting computational and energy demands by two-thirds.
- TBC is currently using the technology to enhance visual AI algorithms — including generative video and computer vision — and is in talks with foundational model labs and cybersecurity firms, while eyeing full real-time biological compute within five to ten years.