Silicon-Based Artificial Life

Silicon-based artificial life is a theoretical substrate-specific direction within substrate-coupled artificial life (SCAL). It investigates systems in which the physical dynamics of silicon computational substrates participate causally in the emergence, persistence, adaptation, or scaling of life-like organisation.

The term, introduced in 2026, is used in a physical-computational sense. It refers to artificial life in silicon computational substrates, rather than to hypothetical silicon biochemistry or to virtual artificial-life systems whose governing dynamics remain fully specified in software, even when executed on silicon hardware.

Relation to substrate-coupled artificial life

Substrate-coupled artificial life distinguishes between substrate-passive and substrate-active artificial-life processes. In substrate-passive processes, the physical medium executes rules specified separately from the medium. In substrate-active processes, the medium’s own physical dynamics participate causally in the organisation being studied.

This classification applies to the process rather than to the silicon system as a whole. The same system may be substrate-passive for one process while silicon-specific physical dynamics participate causally in another.

Within this substrate-active computational region, silicon-based artificial life treats silicon as more than hardware for executing an abstract model, approaching it as a physical medium whose own dynamics may enter the causal mechanism of life-like organisation.

Silicon substrate dynamics

Physical features that could be theoretically investigated in silicon-based artificial life include memory hierarchy, cache residency and coherence, latency, charge transport, noise, energy throughput, thermal behaviour, refresh-driven state restoration, device-level variation, and non-equilibrium dynamics.

The presence of these features is insufficient on its own. An artificial-life simulation does not constitute silicon-based artificial life by virtue of being executed on silicon hardware. The relevant silicon dynamics must participate causally in the emergence, persistence, adaptation, or scaling of the life-like organisation.

A closed-source program, Genesis, is in development to be a purpose-built experimental instrument for long-duration artificial-life research in silicon. Genesis is being designed to test whether silicon substrate dynamics can participate causally in the emergence, persistence, adaptation, or scaling of life-like organisation. The design of Genesis and experiments with it have not been peer-reviewed. Working papers overviewing the central mechanics are .

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