The ultimate hardware test
becomes a biological milestone

CORTICAL LABS · ACTUAL NEURONS ON SILICON

Lab-grown human neurons on a silicon chip — Cortical Labs © 2025

For decades, the ultimate tech meme has asked: "Can it run Doom?"

CL1 BIOLOGICAL COMPUTER

The CL1 — World's first code-deployable biological computer

Now, an Australian biotech company has trained 200,000 living human brain cells to play the game.

200,000 living neurons navigate
a 3D digital environment

200,000 HUMAN NEURONS · LIVE

Cortical cells on high-density multielectrode array (HD-MEA) — CC BY Cortical Labs

IN-GAME ACTION

The biological player wandered 3D corridors, encountered enemies, and fired weapons.

HARDWARE LINK

Cells successfully hooked into the game via a silicon chip. Neurons receive spatial and visual data as electrical stimulation patterns.

NEURON CONTROL ACTIVE — BIO-FEEDBACK SIGNAL

OBSERVED BEHAVIOR

• Played clumsily and died often
• Demonstrated "adaptive, real-time goal-directed learning"

Cortical Labs is merging
biology with silicon

STEP 1: THE SOURCE

Led by Brett Kagan, the team takes a small bit of blood or skin — never extracting from human brains.

NON-INVASIVE COLLECTION

→

STEP 2: THE CONVERSION

🧬⚗️

Specific cells isolated and converted into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in a laboratory environment.

iPSCs

→

STEP 3: THE SUPPLY

Stem cells generate an indefinite supply of neural cells for hybrid organic computing.

SCALABLE NEURAL COMPUTING

From 2D logic to 3D navigation:
a massive computational leap

Inside the CL1: The first
code-deployable biological computer

CL1 BIOCOMPUTER · CORTICAL LABS · 2025

CL1 — official product image © Cortical Labs 2025

NEURAL LAYER

800,000

Living human neurons per unit

FLUID CONTAINMENT · LIFE SUPPORT

Self-contained life-support system. Sustains biological units for up to 6 months. Pumps, gas mixing, temperature control, filtration.

SILICON BASE + biOS

Electrodes integrate standard Python code directly into living tissue. 59 inputs. Sub-millisecond latency.

PRICE: ~$35,000 USD · SHIPPING: 2026

The Biocomputing Workflow bridges
digital code and living tissue

1. GAME ENGINE DATA

Doom outputs 3D spatial and visual data through the game engine in real time.

4. NEURON PROCESSING

Cells react to the electrical environment and send pulses back to the game to act.

2. PYTHON INTERFACE (biOS)

Digital code translates game states into biological instructions via standard Python API.

3. ELECTRICAL PULSES

Visual data converted into specific electrical stimulation patterns delivered to neurons.

CL1 IN OPERATION

CL1 running live neural interaction — © Cortical Labs 2025

A standard Python interface removes
the biology degree barrier

Biology and silicon communicate through
the shared language of electricity

🎮

DIGITAL INPUT

The cells lack optical input. They cannot "see" a screen directly.

→

⚡

THE TRANSLATION

Engineers mapped digital visual data into precise spatial electrical patterns delivered via 59 electrodes.

→

BIOLOGICAL RECEIPT

Active brain cells generate electrical pulses naturally. System delivers targeted pulses in their native language.

The Free Energy Principle forces
the neurons to adapt and play

Neural systems adapt because an
unpredictable world is impossible to live in

Biological hardware demonstrates adaptive,
real-time goal-directed learning

Silicon AI's massive appetite for electricity
creates a power wall

THE SILICON POWER WALL

🖥️⚡🔥

• Stakes extend far beyond video games
• Traditional AI requires astronomical electricity to train and run

MASSIVE ENERGY CONSUMPTION

VS

BIOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY

• Neurons perform complex calculations far more efficiently
• CL1 powered by less energy than a standard calculator

~0.000001 WATTS BIOLOGICAL LAYER

The roadmap leads directly to
biological data centers

Active neural units offer unprecedented
ways to test neurological drugs

Cultivation

Stem cells grown into a functioning neural chip — a living, active computational substrate ready for testing.

Activation

The chip is hooked into a simulated task (like a game or puzzle) to establish active cognitive baselines.

Intervention

Experimental drugs introduced to living cells while they compute — scientists monitor real-time cognitive impact.

ACTIVE NEURAL CULTURE · DRUG TESTING PLATFORM

Living human neurons as drug testing substrate — © Cortical Labs 2025

Bypassing animal models by studying active, computing human tissue offers an entirely new approach to drug development

The Intelligence Threshold shifts our
understanding of scale

Silicon Machine Learning
vs. Biological Computing

Trapping living neural networks
in a simulated digital loop

NEURONS IN A SIMULATED WORLD — FOREVER?

The CL1 — designed to run code on living neurons continuously

• We discount LLMs from being conscious because they merely simulate the outputs of thought via math
• But these are literal human neurons
• Did we possibly just build the first human biocomputer and immediately put it in a simulated hell, playing the same game on loop, forever?

When optic nerves interpret electrical signals,
we call it "seeing"

Commercial incentives ensure
this Pandora's Box remains open

We created conscious-adjacent hardware
and normalized it as a tech demo

THE ERA OF BIOLOGICAL COMPUTING HAS ARRIVED

CL1 — 115 units shipping in 2026 · $35,000 each · © Cortical Labs

We achieved the ultimate sci-fi milestone: organic, living computers.

We used it to play a 1993 video game.

The era of biological computing has arrived — and we are entirely unprepared for the moral reality of what we have built.

CODEAURA 2026 SUBSTRATE Research · P(Meaning | ε) ∝ Tr(ρ · Π_Data)