Amazon Brings Rat Brain AI Model to AWS in Push for Biological Computing

Biological computing is gaining momentum as a startup that uses neural patterns from rat brain cells to build artificial intelligence receives a major boost from Amazon Web Services.

TBC’s Rat Brain AI Model Comes to AWS

Starting Tuesday, some Amazon Web Services customers will receive limited-preview access to The Biological Computing Company’s “Rat Brain” AI model. The startup designed the technology specifically to make AI-powered video generation more efficient.

The company, known as TBC, expects the technology to become available to all AWS enterprise customers soon. Amazon is also working with The Biological Computing Company.

“We have figured out a way to encode information, such as images, into biological materials,” says TBC co-founder Alexander Ksenzovsky. “Then we look at how biology processes that information and build tools to mimic that process.”

How Biological Computing Works

Deep Ubi, global director of technology for startups at Amazon Web Services, said this is not the first bio-based computing platform Amazon has made available on the market.

Ubi said AWS is also working with Cortical Labs, an Australia-based company that combines lab-grown neurons with silicon chips to help companies process data. Cortical Labs describes its product as WAAS, or “wetware as a service.”

Cortical Labs also sells “biocomputers” that cost several thousand dollars. The low-power devices are designed for use in laboratories and are reportedly able to keep neurons alive for up to six months.

Ubi described TBC’s approach as “pragmatic.” Rather than making a major pivot or attempting to reinvent transformers—the core architectural units of large language models—the startup is working within existing generative AI standards.

“They’re working within existing standards in the generative AI space and thinking, ‘How can we make our current visual model more efficient?’” Ubi explains.

Why Biological Computing Is Attracting Attention

As AI companies search for ways to make their models more efficient, a once-fringe field known as biological computing is beginning to gain traction.

Researchers have long envisioned computer software that functions more like the neural networks in the human brain, rather than relying solely on math-based algorithms.

The field also presents unusual challenges. Biological computing requires not only computer laboratories but also biology laboratories, where brain cells, stem cells, or synthetic biomaterials must be kept alive or preserved, carefully monitored, and converted into meaningful digital information.

Although several startups are making progress, bridging the gap between biological systems and computer code remains complex.

The Biological Computing Company’s Funding

The Biological Computing Company was founded four years ago in Baltimore, Maryland, by two neuroscientists and a neurosurgeon. Alexander Ksenzowski serves as CEO, while John Pomeraniek is the company’s president and COO.

Earlier this year, TBC raised its first major funding round: $25 million from a group of investors led by Primary Venture Partners.