Mar 09, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Australian biological computing startup Cortical Labs has unveiled a biological data center prototype in Melbourne. The facility is designed to process information using what the company calls “wetware” — lab-grown neurons cultivated on traditional silicon chips.
Built around neurological networks, Cortical Labs said its data center requires only a “fraction of the energy” used by digital systems, as the brain-like networks can “learn and adapt in ways conventional computing struggles to replicate.”
The company said its CL1 biological computers operate on just 30W, significantly less than traditional silicon GPUs, which can consume up to 600W, potentially reducing the electricity and cooling demands of AI workloads.
Launched in March 2025, Cortical Labs’ CL1 system combines neurons cultivated from human stem cells with silicon to create what the company says is a “more advanced and sustainable form of AI,” a neural network dubbed Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI). Once cultivated, the neurons grow across the silicon chip, which sends and receives electrical impulses into the neural structure, before being integrated into Cortical Labs’ Biological Intelligence Operating System (biOS), which is capable of running simulations.
“AI capacity is accelerating faster than most people realise, and everyone is talking about chips, models and megawatts,” said Hon Weng Chong, MD, founder and CEO, Cortical Labs. “But far fewer are talking about the environmental and resource hazards that sit underneath this growth: the power constraints, the water trade-offs, and the sustainability risk if we simply build more of the same. The bio data center is our proof-of-concept that there’s another path. Computing that’s biologically inspired, dramatically more efficient, and designed for the world we’re actually living in.”
