In 1936, Alan Turing showed that all computers are simply manifestations of an underlying logical architecture, no matter what materials they’re made of. Although most of the computer’s we’re familiar with are made of silicon semiconductors, other computers have been made of DNA, light, legos, paper, and many other unconventional materials. Now in a new study, scientists have built a computer made of artificial muscles that are themselves made of electroactive polymers. The artificial muscle computer is an example of the simplest known universal Turing machine, and as such it is capable of solving any computable problem given sufficient time and memory. By showing that artificial muscles can “think,” the study paves the way for the development of smart, lifelike prostheses and soft robots that can conform to changing environments.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a computer has been built out of artificial muscles,” O’Brien told Phys.org. “What makes it exciting is that the technology can be directly and intimately embedded into artificial muscle devices, giving them lifelike reflexes. Even though our computer has hard bits, the technology is fundamentally soft and stretchy, something that traditional methods of computation struggle with.”