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VEVEY, Switzerland: Inside a lab in the picturesque Swiss town of Vevey, a scientist gives tiny clumps of human brain cells the nutrient-rich fluid they need to stay alive.
It is vital these mini-brains remain healthy, because they are serving as rudimentary computer processors — and unlike your laptop, once they die, they cannot be rebooted.
This new field of research, called biocomputing or “wetware,” aims to harness the evolutionarily honed yet still mysterious computing power of the human brain.
During a tour of Swiss start-up FinalSpark’s lab, co-founder Fred Jordan told AFP he believes that processors using brain cells will one day replace the chips powering the artificial intelligence boom.
The supercomputers behind AI tools like ChatGPT currently use silicon semiconductors to simulate the neurons and networks of the human brain.
“Instead of trying to mimic, let’s use the real thing,” Jordan said.
Among other potential advantages, biocomputing could help address the skyrocketing energy demands of AI, which have already threatened climate emissions targets and led some tech giants to resort to nuclear power.
“Biological neurons are one million times more energy efficient than artificial neurons,” Jordan said. They can also be endlessly reproduced in the lab, unlike the massively in-demand AI chips made by companies like behemoth Nvidia.
But for now, wetware’s computing power is a very long way from competing with the hardware that runs the world.
And another question lingers: could these tiny brains become conscious?

Brain power

To make its “bioprocessors,” FinalSpark first purchases stem cells. These cells, which were originally human skin cells from anonymous human donors, can become any cell in the body.
FinalSpark’s scientists then turn them into neurons, which are collected into millimeter-wide clumps called brain organoids.
They are around the size of the brain of a fruit fly larvae, Jordan said.
Electrodes are attached to the organoids in the lab, which allow the scientists to “spy on their internal discussion,” he explained.
The scientists can also stimulate the organoids with a small electric current. Whether they respond with a spike in activity — or not — is roughly the equivalent of the ones or zeroes in traditional computing.
Ten universities around the world are conducting experiments using FinalSpark’s organoids — the small company’s website even has a live feed of the neurons at work.
Benjamin Ward-Cherrier, a researcher at the University of Bristol, used one of the organoids as the brain of a simple robot that managed to distinguish between different braille letters.
There are many challenges, including encoding the data in a way the organoid might understand — then trying to interpret what the brain cells “spit out,” he told AFP.
“Working with robots is very easy by comparison,” Ward-Cherrier said with a laugh.
“There’s also the fact that they are living cells — and that means that they do die,” he added.
Indeed, Ward-Cherrier was halfway through an experiment when the organoid died and his team had to start over. FinalSpark says the organoids live for up to six months.
At Johns Hopkins University in the United States, researcher Lena Smirnova is using similar organoids to study brain conditions such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease in the hopes of finding new treatments.
Biocomputing is currently more “pie in the sky,” unlike the “low-hanging fruit” use of the technology for biomedical research — but that could change dramatically over the next 20 years, she told AFP.

Do organoids dream of electric sheep? 

All the scientists AFP spoke to dismissed the idea that these tiny balls of cells in petri dishes were at risk of developing anything resembling consciousness.
Jordan acknowledged that “this is at the edge of philosophy,” which is why FinalSpark collaborates with ethicists.
He also pointed out that the organoids — which lack pain receptors — have around 10,000 neurons, compared to a human brain’s 100 billion.
However much about our brains, including how they create consciousness, remains a mystery.
That is why Ward-Cherrier hopes that — beyond computer processing — biocomputing will ultimately reveal more about how our brains work.
Back in the lab, Jordan opens the door of what looks like a big fridge containing 16 brain organoids in a tangle of tubes.
Lines suddenly start spiking on the screen next to the incubator, indicating significant neural activity.
The brain cells have no known way of sensing that their door has been opened, and the scientists have spent years trying to figure why this happens.
“We still don’t understand how they detect the opening of the door,” Jordan admitted.

 

KYIV, Ukraine: Russia battered Ukraine’s energy facilities with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in its latest heavy bombardment of the country’s power grid, authorities said Thursday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky prepared to ask President Donald Trump at a White House meeting for more American-made air defenses and long-range missiles.
As he considers Zelensky’s push for US missiles, Trump said after Thursday’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that they will meet in Budapest, Hungary to try to bring the war to an end. No date for the meeting has been set.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he will discuss his call with Putin “and much more” when he meets Zelensky on Friday, adding that “I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.”
Meanwhile, eight Ukrainian regions experienced blackouts after the barrage, Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, said. DTEK, the country’s largest private energy company, reported outages in the capital, Kyiv, and said it had to stop its natural gas extraction in the central Poltava region due to the strikes. Natural gas infrastructure was damaged for the sixth time this month, Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company, said.
Russia fires hundreds of drones and 37 missiles
Zelensky said Russia fired more than 300 drones and 37 missiles at Ukraine overnight. He accused Russia of using cluster munitions and conducting repeated strikes on the same target to hit emergency crews and engineers working to repair the grid.
“This fall, the Russians are using every single day to strike our energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian power grid been one of Russia’s main targets since its invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago. Attacks increase as the bitterly cold months approach in a Russian strategy that Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing winter.” Russia says it aims only at targets of military value.
Ukraine has hit back by targeting oil refineries and related infrastructure that are crucial for Russia’s economy and war effort. Ukraine’s general staff said Thursday its forces struck Saratov oil refinery, in the Russian region of the same name, for the second time in two months. The facility is located some 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Moscow made no immediate comment on the claim.
Ukraine seeks air defenses and attack missiles
Ukrainian forces have resisted Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army, limiting it to a grinding war of attrition along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking through eastern and southern regions.
But Ukraine, which is almost the size of Texas, is hard to defend from the air in its entirety, and Kyiv officials are seeking more Western help to fend against aerial attacks and strike back at Russia.
Zelensky was expected to arrive in the United States on Thursday, ahead of his Oval Office meeting with Trump on Friday.
Ukraine is seeking cruise missiles, air defense systems and joint drone production agreements from the United States, Kyiv officials say. Zelensky also wants tougher international economic sanctions on Moscow.
The visit comes amid signs that Trump is leaning toward stepping up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to break the deadlock in US-led peace efforts.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday in Brussels that if Russia won’t budge from its objections and refuses to negotiate a peace deal, Washington “will take the steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression.”
Also, Trump said Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally assured him that his country would stop buying Russian oil. That would deny Moscow income it needs to keep fighting in Ukraine.
Washington has hesitated over providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, such as Tomahawks, out of concern that such a step could escalate the war and deepen tensions between the United States and Russia.
But Trump has been frustrated by his inability to force an end to the war in Ukraine and has expressed impatience with Putin, whom he increasingly describes as the primary obstacle to a resolution.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment published late Wednesday that sending Tomahawks to Ukraine would not escalate the war and would only “mirror Russia’s own use of … long-range cruise missiles against Ukraine.”
Ukraine engages with American defense companies
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Economy Ministry said Thursday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with US company Bell Textron Inc. to cooperate in aviation technology.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based aerospace and defense company will open an office in Ukraine and establish a center for assembly and testing, while exchanging know-how and training Ukrainians in the United States, according to a ministry statement.
Ukraine, unsure what it can expect from Western allies, is keen to develop its own arms industry.
On Wednesday, a Ukrainian government delegation met during a US visit with prominent American weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.