Ghanaian prodigy Tyrone Iras Marhguy engineers a “Computer Brain” at Penn

Nii Ayitey Brown 08:46 - 29 January 2026

Tyrone Iras Marhguy

Ghanaian student Tyrone Iras Marhguy, now at the University of Pennsylvania, has built a working computer brain from scratch in his dorm room, designing an 8-bit ALU with 3,488 transistors after his landmark Achimota School court case.

Tyrone Iras Marhguy, a former Achimota School student and current undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), has built a working computer “brain” from scratch in his university dormitory, marking another major milestone in a journey that has already made him a familiar name in Ghana.

Marhguy, a Ghanaian computer engineering student, designed and verified a fully functional 8-bit Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) — a core component of a computer’s central processing unit — using 3,488 discrete MOSFET transistors.

According to him, the project, which took more than 250 hours of intensive design and testing, is capable of performing 19 different arithmetic and logical operations and has been validated with over 1.2 million test vectors.

An ALU is responsible for basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, comparisons and logical decisions inside a computer. While modern processors contain billions of transistors fabricated on silicon chips, Marhguy’s work stands out because it was built and verified at the transistor level, one component at a time, outside of a professional chip fabrication environment.

The project was driven by a desire to fully understand how computers work beneath the abstractions of software and pre-built hardware. With no formal background in chip design at the start, he immersed himself in digital logic, transistor physics and circuit verification, carefully building each gate and subsystem from first principles.

Phase one of the project has now been completed. The next stages will involve optimising the design, assembling the circuitry onto a printed circuit board (PCB), followed by soldering, debugging and physical hardware testing.

Marhguy first gained national attention in Ghana in 2021 after Achimota School initially denied him admission because he wore dreadlocks, which he said were part of his Rastafarian faith.

The decision sparked widespread public debate and a legal challenge led by his father.In a landmark ruling, the High Court in Accra found that the school’s action violated Marhguy’s constitutional rights to education, dignity and religious freedom.

The ruling was widely hailed by civil society groups as a significant affirmation of religious rights within Ghana’s education system. Marhguy later enrolled at Achimota School and completed his studies there. He went on to excel academically, earning eight A1s in the 2023 WASSCE, and distinguishing himself in international competitions, including top honours in mathematics and science.

His achievements eventually earned him multiple full scholarship offers from universities in the United States, reportedly valued at over US$1 million, before he chose UPenn to study computer engineering.

Now studying in the US, Marhguy’s dorm-room ALU project reflects a continuation of the curiosity and determination that have defined his academic path. Beyond the technical accomplishment, the project highlights an emerging interest in computer architecture and hardware design.

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