Computer chips that can smell

New leap for AI

ARUSHA, Tanzania, Aug 28, (AFP): Nigerian neuroscientist Oshiorenoya Agabi may have found a way to solve one of life's puzzling dilemmas: how to make air travel pleasant again.

What if you could skip tedious airport security lines, while a special device able to sniff out explosives works silently in the background?

This is only one of the possible uses of what Agabi says is the world's first neurotechnology device developed by his Silicon Valley-based start-up Koniku and unveiled at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania Sunday.

While those in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are working furiously to create machines that can mimic the brain, or – like tech entrepreneur Elon Musk – implant computers in our brains, Agabi has found a way to merge lab-grown neurons with electronic circuitry.

As many grapple with the finite processing power of silicon, the 38-yearold said he had looked to the brain which is "the most powerful processor the universe has ever seen."

To simulate the power of just 204 brain neurons would require a supercomputer, he said.

"Instead of copying a neuron, why not just take the biological cell itself and use it as it is? That thought is radical. The consequence of this is mindboggling," he said.

So he and a team of geneticists, physicists, bio-engineers, molecular biologists and others set about doing just that, focusing on the problems that were particularly hard for silicon devices to solve.

This includes

detecting

volatile chemicals and explosives or even illnesses such as cancer.

Agabi said the Koniku Kore device is "a world first" and able to do just that, essentially through breathing in and smelling the air.

He said "major brands", including those in the travel industry, had signed up and the start-up's current revenues of $8 million (7 million euros) were expected to leap to $30 million by 2018.

One of the main challenges was finding a way to keep the neurons alive, a secret Agabi did not wish to expand on, saying only they could be kept alive for two years in a lab environment and two months in the device.

As AI improves in leaps and bounds, scientists are trying to make and succeeding in making machines more like our brains, able to learn and understand their surroundings: a prospect that is terrifying for many.