It depends on what you mean by sentient.

From Wiki

Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively.

Many philosophers, notably Colin McGinn, believe that sentience will never be understood, no matter how much progress is made by neuroscience in understanding the brain. Holders of this position are called New Mysterians. They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation, from creativity to sapience and self-awareness. New Mysterians believe that only sentience cannot be comprehensively understood by science. There continues to be much debate among philosophers, with many adamant that there is really no hard problem with sentience whatsoever.

In science fiction, an alien, android, robot or computer who is described as "sentient" is often ascribed qualities such as will, desire, consciousness, ethics, personality, intelligence, insight, and so on. Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it.

In many science fiction works sentience is often used as a synomym for sapience meaning "human-level or higher intelligence".