Singapore just switched on the world's first data center powered by living human brain cells. Actual neurons. grown from human stem cells. sitting on electrode-fitted silicon chips. processing information. A company called Cortical Labs takes human blood cells and reprograms them into stem cells. those stem cells are then cultured into neurons. the neurons are placed on a chip with 59 electrodes that send and receive electrical signals. the cells process those signals and respond. the system interprets those responses as computing output. 20 of these units called CL1 are now running in a rack at the National University of Singapore's Life Sciences Institute. the full rack draws 800 to 1,000 watts. a comparable Nvidia AI rack draws over 100,000 watts. the neurons are a million times more energy-efficient than silicon that's not marketing copy, that's from FinalSpark, a Swiss company running the same technology. The details that make this story impossible to look away from: the neurons die. every six months. the modules need to be refreshed with new cells. before becoming a commercial product, Cortical Labs taught the cells to play Pong. then Doom. 800,000 neurons completing a first-person shooter is apparently a required milestone before enterprise deployment. the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel is an investor in Cortical Labs. the same organization that funded the satellite mapping tech that became Google Earth, that built listening devices and spy gadgets, now funds a data center made of human neurons. the listed use cases: drug discovery. humanoid robotics. fraud detection. cybersecurity. one month of access to a single unit costs $2,200. half the price of renting a comparable Nvidia chip. 🤯