HELLO FUTURE: Can Wetware Beat Silicon? The Race to Build Living Data Centers.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Have you heard about brain organoids? Have you heard about biocomputers?
These are computers that are not necessarily being built out
of polysilicon or other rare Earth materials, but actually being
built out of human cells. Hello Future, it's me Kevin.
This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The year
is twenty twenty five, the planet is Earth. It's almost
twenty twenty six. My name is Kevin Sirelli and my
guest today he's returning to the program because our first conversation,
I thought to myself, I need way much more time
with doctor Fred Jordan, the co founder of Final Spark,
which is one of these pioneering frontier industry companies that
is looking at how human cells could actually build computers
brain computers. I want to ask a really basic question,
what does this look like like? Walk me through the
actual process of Okay, you hook me up and you
get my blood. I'm assuming I don't even know. Walk
me through the process of how an organoid brain computer
is built. From step one.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Okay, I can indeed start with your blood. Typically I
can also start with some of your skin cells. Okay,
a few skin cells from this, we're going to convert
them into so called stem cells. Okay, cell can become
any cell of your body.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
From the stem cell, we are going to convert them
into neurons.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Neurons are super small and they're super microscopic. My biology
teacher from high school is cringing right now if you
knew how much I forgot from all of that. So
you've got I'm assuming, a vial of stem cells. Okay,
and now you've converted the stem cells into neurons.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now what Well, now that's not enough. We have to
connect them together. So we are going to put them
in a plastic web which is moving in an incubator,
and after a few weeks we will obtain a small boat,
very small but you can't see this with your eyes, okay.
And then this small ball, this is an eblus tissue
on electrodes. And then we start a conversation.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Okay, so I'm almost there. So you've got a small
amount and this to the human eye would look like
blood I'm assuming, or.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
It looks like a small white ball.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, a small white ball of these human neurons. Essentially
that were stem cells that came from a skin swab
or from blood. Okay. So you've got these human neurons,
and then what do you do with it? Is like
I'm trying to look for the analogy. Does this become
the essentially gasoline for technology or what is it at
this point?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Basically you have a processor.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Okay, processor.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, you already have a processor at this point. The
only problem is that you don't know what but it's
able to do. Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
And so when you say processor, is that essentially similar
to a semiconductor chip in the function?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
In principle, yes, it is that you can send information
to it using these truths and it will reply to
you using those semi truths. So therefore it is processing information.
Therefore it is a processor.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Wow, that's crazy. I just had a huge meat the
future moment. Okay, so then what do you how is
this being used? And this technology has been around for
thirty years?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well yeah, so the fundamentals around this are note for
thirty years. People, absolutely right, Okay, let me tell you.
The only thing that is new, okay, is to try
to make a computer with living neurons. To try to
do it for real, The idea is not new. It
was very well on in science fiction. I guess you
can find this as above. For instance, I think I've
read it in many times. I'm not sure about the author.
But yeah, new, Yeah, it's not that new. I'm sure
you heard about this living brains connected with it. It
was this is not a new image in your brain. No,
it's not so Well, it is new is to say
we are going to do it. The technology is mattive
enough so that we can do this.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
So talk to me about fifty even one hundred years
from now if this technology is adopted. And I'll be honest,
I'm not sure I know enough about it to even
be to understand, because clearly there's ethical you know, concerns
that come up and whatnot. But what are some of
the use cases one hundred years from now that you
could foresee this type of technology making humans lives better?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
For So, the obvious application is going to decrease energy
demand for running those big servers which are used.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
For AI today, the data center. Yeah, we talked about
that last time, But then you hinted at some other
applications that we use our imagination of what it could
be used for. That's what I want to get out
of here.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
I can't get give you to the first thing. You know,
that was a guy who invented the solid state transistor.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
The solid state transistor is.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Used in any integrated circuits that you were referring to
before any sit or computer's work like this. Okay, eighty
years ago, ato, Okay, I can promise you he had
no clue that his invention could be used to create
smartphones on the Internet.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Exactly. I mean that guy I'm unfamiliar with that. I
mean that guy changed the course of history.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Absolutely. So now you're asking me, I'm only fred here
to predict what up the application of a new industry.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
No, I totally understand what you're saying, because, especially when
I report on quantum computing, I always ask people it's
a totally fair response. I don't think you're dodging my question.
It's it's hard to when we have access to new technologies,
it's hard to understand how they're going to be applied.
And with something like this, from my perspective, it takes
the rare earth minerals and mining conversation and in many
ways flips it on its head. These semiconductor chips, you know,
the demand for them really since the nineteen eighties has
just skyrocketed, and so semiconductor chips are just mini computer processors.
But if you think of you know how many devices
we now rely on. Our cars are computers, planes are computers.
Everything's a computer now and they've got hundreds and hundreds
of semiconductor chips. And by the way, the rare earth
materials that are in these semiconductor chips, they come from
various different parts of the world. It's just like building
a car, folks, the same reasoning of when you when
you're in your car. Different parts of your car come
from all over the world and they're made in different places.
A semi conductor chip is a fraction of the size
of a car, obviously, but those little pieces in it,
it goes all around the world to make it. So
what doctor Fred Jordan is suggesting, I think, and this
is a really big meet the future moment for me
is that if we are somehow able to get human
cells through some cell research, and NASA has been conducting
experiments on this, as all of the different international space
agencies have and whatnot, in some way to help perform
the function of a semiconductor chip or a transmitter or
whatever you want to call it, that would make it
a lot easier theoretically to perform the same function. And
if you expand that out, if you're in outer space
or you're trying to quickly create computers, to be able
to utilize some type of living organism as a way
to make chips. For lack of a better analogy, Wow,
I would imagine it would be a lot easier.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, I mean that that's an interesting idea actually that
I never had before. So thanks for this.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Do I get paid for that thread?

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Right? If you do an integrated circuit, it res requires
a very complex technology, Okay, a full industry. Actually, okay,
it's not that complicated to make a bioprocessor because it's
just life. I mean, neurones are just multiplying overnight. You
don't have to do anything. Okay, it's way simple.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Is there an advantage to using humans versus animals or
other living things?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, I don't know, and most of the questions actually
I don't know. Yeah, but we always you know, when
you do a new field, like a startup like this,
you have to be aware that there may be some
discoveries which were unexpected that you find a long the way,
and I better have discoveries related to human neurons than
to write neurals.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
How do you wake up one day and say, I
want to go from digital to bio. Instead of the
digital processor, I want to have the bioprocessor. You must
have read a lot of Frankenstein when you were a kid.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, but it's a science fiction first, Okay, I love
sun fiction. I know. I worked for years. I have
a PhD in applied mathematics, So my friends, is computing
and simulations of neurons. I've been doing this for decades actually,
all right, and at some point as an engineer, I
had to realize that that was a better way, and
the better way was to use a living neuron. But
it was just by luck, because I knew professors working
in this field, and just I mean joking and speaking,
we came up that it was the most rational way
to move forward.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
It's fascinating. You guys are like brain engineers. You're not
an engineer, you're a brain engineer. And it's really really remarkable.
I never even knew this science existed. I never could
have imagined that there's this whole industry right now of
people who are looking at the demand for chips and
thinking of bioengineering and ways that we could utilize human
neurons to solve some of these problems. Doctor fred Jordan,
I really appreciate this. Thank you so much.