DNA Ascendancy sets up DNA to replace silicon for new computer era
One of the founders of DNA Ascendancy has made a passionate appeal for more awareness of DNA computing as an alternative to traditional silicon-based computing – and urged investors and venture capitalists to get involved.
DNA Ascendancy was incorporated in 2023 with the vision of transforming computing through DNA technology. It has designed computers to use DNA instead of silicon as the medium for computation – far surpassing the limits of traditional silicon-based systems.
The company’s computers are based on Nondeterministic Universal Turing Machines (NUTMs), and their processors can literally replicate themselves to solve problems by searching all paths in parallel.
The start-up is working towards a desktop DNA-based computer – a computer “with DNA swimming around in it”. It is a significant enhancement to the DNA storage mechanism devised by Cambridge-based Evonetix.
Founder and ‘chief visionary’ Prof Ross King says: “On a desktop you could have much more power than the world’s biggest supercomputer – and also use far less energy. Our computer can in principle solve much more complicated problems than quantum computers.”
Prof King is a professor of biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, where he specialises in automation, and is developing the idea of ‘robot scientists’. Back in 2017 he was at the University of Manchester where he was working on creating the first molecular Universal Turing machine when he met Konstantin Korovin – DNA Ascendancy’s chief technologist – who was a reader at the Department of Computer Science. Together, they worked on the theory of DNA computing.
Prof King has a joint appointment as professor of machine intelligence at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. At Chalmers he met Bengt Nordén, a professor of chemistry, and former chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
“We got talking about DNA computing and the company came out of the conversations I had with him in 2020 that was when it really started,” said Prof King, a softly-spoken Scotsman. “We moved the company to Cambridge from Sweden as Cambridge is so much better placed for biotech start-ups.”
Irina Gostimskaya came on board as co-founder and chief scientist in 2021 – “we’re all chiefs at DNA Ascendancy” she notes with a smile.
A postdoctoral researcher at the university’s Department of Chemistry, Dr Gostimskaya is an authority on CRISPR/DNA editing. The fifth founder is Sweden-based entrepreneur Johan Borendal.
Together, they have demonstrated the design in the lab, and this plus computational simulations demonstrate the potential of DNA computing. The simulations work “only up to a certain size as no electronic computer has enough memory to do the calculations”, Prof King says during a visit to The Bradfield Centre with Dr Gostimskaya.
He adds: “We’ve shown that all the independent steps work and in a simulation have shown we can solve problems better than the world’s fastest supercomputer.
“If we got funding today we could be up and running in five years and that would solve many of the current computer issues, especially related to energy use.”
In investment terms, Prof King describes DNA-based computing as being roughly where AI or quantum computing were in 2017 – that is, very niche, and very speculative.
“Our computer is in principle much more powerful than a quantum computer,” notes Prof King.
“It’s taken trillions of dollars to make silicon good at computing, and that’s hard to compete with – but we have DNA which has had millions of years to evolve, plus modern biotech.”
DNA Ascendancy has started fundraising.
“It could become a multi-billion-dollar industry. We’re looking for £2-3million. It’s a slower process than we would have wanted.”
Prof King suggests that the venture capital model in the UK “isn’t fully optimised”.
“I’ve seen this before,” he adds. “In 2017 there was no money for quantum… I’ve been in AI all my career and you find sometimes it’s popular, sometimes not – it’s not a rational process.
“With angels it’s their money so they can quite rightly go with their gut instincts. But with venture capital they mostly want to play it safe.”
Switching from silicon to DNA to develop a new era of compute would indubitably be a revolutionary outcome – and full marks to DNA Ascendancy for being the first to get the ball rolling.
