Amazon Is Testing AI Powered by Living Rat Brain Cells
Your future AI video tools could be trained by actual biology, not just math.
Amazon started quietly offering something strange on its cloud this week: an AI model built by watching living rat brain cells. A Baltimore startup called The Biological Computing Company (TBC) placed neurons on silicon chips dotted with tiny electrodes, sent electrical signals through them, and recorded how the cells responded. Those responses became the blueprint for software that improves AI video generation. Starting Tuesday, a small number of Amazon Web Services customers can try it in a limited preview.
To be clear, nobody is running your apps on a rat brain. TBC is essentially using biology as a research shortcut, looking for clever tricks inside living neurons that engineers might not think of, then writing those tricks into ordinary code. The founders, two neuroscientists and brain surgeons, chose video because images map easily onto the electrode grid. Text and language don't fit nearly as well.
Amazon's interest is mostly about money and energy. AI companies are burning huge amounts of electricity and cash to make video tools, and anything that squeezes out more efficiency is valuable. Amazon says TBC appealed to it because the startup works within today's standard AI systems instead of trying to rebuild them from scratch. TBC has raised over $50 million and employs about 35 people, some tending rat cells and human stem cells in a San Francisco lab. Rival Cortical Labs sells a similar idea it calls "wetware as a service."
The honest catch: biology is finicky. Neurons must stay alive, fed, monitored and kept sterile, which means running a real laboratory, not just a data center. Scaling that up is expensive and unpredictable, and using animal cells raises ethical questions. So don't expect rat-powered ChatGPT tomorrow. But if this approach works, the payoff could be AI video tools that cost less to run, which eventually means cheaper, faster creative software for everyone.
- A startup called TBC built an AI model by recording how living rat brain cells respond to electrical signals, then copying those patterns into software.
- Amazon Web Services opened a limited preview to select customers on Tuesday, and the startup has raised more than $50 million with roughly 35 employees.
- The goal is cheaper, more efficient AI video generation — but keeping cells alive in labs makes this hard to scale.
Why It Matters
Cheaper, more efficient AI video tools could reach you sooner — and biology may cut AI's huge energy bill.