Melbourne biotech Cortical Labs has shown living human neurons grown on its CL1 chip learning to play the 1993 shooter Doom, the latest test of what the company describes as the world’s first commercial computer that runs on human brain cells.
The work builds on a 2022 experiment in which Cortical Labs’ DishBrain system learned to play Pong in about five minutes. Doom is a far more complex task, and the company says the result shows the cells can adapt to stimuli in real time and carry out goal-directed learning. Its broader argument is about energy: the human brain runs on an estimated 20 watts, a level of efficiency silicon computing and AI have not matched, AFP reported in May 2026.
How the CL1 works
Each CL1 unit holds around 200,000 living human neurons grown from stem cells, which AFP reported are derived from blood donations. The cells sit on a silicon chip with electrodes that stimulate them and read their activity. Different patterns of activity are mapped to actions such as moving left or right or firing, and researchers adjust the inputs to train the network. The cells have a lifespan of about six months.
Performance is still basic. Senior application scientist Alon Loeffler told AFP the neurons initially played at the “level of a beginner who’s never played a video game before”, walking into walls and shooting them, before they began targeting enemies more regularly. Chief scientific and operations officer Brett Kagan said the team was “just scratching the surface of what these neural cultures can achieve when integrated in systems like our CL1”.
The technology is still some way from practical computing: the cells are not yet capable of consistent, programmable results, AFP reported, though the company says the CL1 can already be coded for uses such as drug screening.
Founder and funding
Cortical Labs was founded in 2019 by Melbourne doctor and engineer Hon Weng Chong. It has raised more than US$11 million, with backers including Horizons Ventures, Blackbird and In-Q-Tel, the venture arm associated with the CIA.
Biological data centres
Rather than only selling units, the company is building capacity to run neurons as a service. It has a Bio Data Centre in Melbourne with 120 CL1 units and plans a Singapore facility designed to scale to 1,000, according to Data Center Dynamics. Cells prepared at its Melbourne lab are placed in server racks and made available to researchers over the internet, AFP reported.
Jack’s take
This is the most “wait, that’s real?” company in ANZ. Biological computing is very early and a long way from replacing chips, but nothing else in the region looks remotely like it, and it was built in Melbourne.