It's Alive? Billionaire Li Ka-Shing Funds Startup Growing Brain Cell 'Biocomputers'
Billionaire investor Li Ka-Shing is funding a new technology that can potentially rival artificial intelligence (AI) by using brain cells blended with computers in a technology it calls DishBrain.
This science fiction-sounding tech comes from Australian biotech firm Cortical Labs. The company recently raised $10 million in a round led by Horizons Ventures, the investment vehicle of the 94-year-old Ka-Shing, the richest person in Hong Kong. Additional investors included Blackbird Ventures, an Australian venture capital (VC) fund; In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the Central Intelligence Agency; U.S. firm LifeX Ventures; and others.
Hon Weng Chong, founder and CEO of Cortical Labs, created the company to accelerate the promise of AI to a new dimension by adding human brain cells to computer chips and AI technology. The company claims its technology will rival ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms because of lower energy requirements and its ability to learn and grow at an accelerated rate.
Brain tech has seen increased interest from venture capital. Elon Musk's Neuralink company has raised $363 million in collective funding. And magnates like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have begun funding Neuralink-competitor Synchron, which has raised $130 million. Venture-backed Trubrain has seen significant traction among retail investors, having raised over $3.5 million from retail investors. Trubrain is also currently on StartEngine, which means anyone can invest.
Building Biocomputers
Cortical Labs' plan is to use cells from human brains and to grow them in a lab. The company will train these cells to spot different patterns and perform computations. It says these "biocomputers" can perform different tasks than computers, including understanding natural language and making assumptions and decisions when confronted with incomplete data. It takes brain cells from human stem cells and puts them onto microelectrode arrays, which react to various electrical signals.
This novel approach to biocomputing could transform several industries in ways similar ways to AI. One of the earliest and most promising uses is in pharmaceuticals, as DishBrain can identify potential drug candidates and test them within its model. That can reduce the time-to-market for drug development and reduce the use of animals for testing.
Further use cases include healthcare practitioners who can use the technology to make accurate diagnoses and recommendations based on patient data. Financial firms could improve trading or other similar actions by analyzing real-time data in ways that have not been previously possible. Cortical Labs and Ka-Shing also see promise for biocomputers for self-driving vehicles, where they could make faster and safer decisions based on an understanding of sensor data.
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The company's biological computer chip system DishBrain can complete various tasks, including playing a game of the arcade classic "Pong." The company connected DishBrain to a computer that sent signals to the brain cells about the position of the ball in the video game. DishBrain's intelligence decided how to move within the game and also improved over time as it received data from the various electrical signals.
Cortical Labs is able to simulate the conditions in the human brain by managing the fluids, oxygen and other elements in the DishBrain environment. This can improve performance and allows the team to conduct experiments and pull insights that are impossible with live animal test models.
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