People put experimental digital blocks in ASICs all the time, it isn't necessarily that expensive. Its a bit like taking an extra pair of shoes on holiday - in general, I'm a bit concerned about reaching the airline's baggage weight limit. If you ask me to add your shoes to my bag before I start packing, I'm going to say no. If you ask at the end, and I've got some space left, then fine.
However, he's probably talking about an FPGA implementation. That'd be sufficient to prove the concept. Once you've gone that far, you can normally do some simulations to predict the energy consumption on a real chip.