A few days ago, Musk announced on social **x,His brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, has completed its first human implant, and the first recipient is now recovering well
As soon as the news came out, it immediately sparked heated discussions among netizens. Some people doubted, and some people couldn't wait and wanted to try it for themselves.
This doesn't blow up Cai Lei, a ALS protester and former vice president of Jingdong Group, out againHe believes that brain-computer interfaces do not save lives, but only increase communication. Last year, Musk Neuralink recruited patients, and Cai Lei said in an interview with reporters that there is no time to participate in the trial at present.
Musk revealed that the first product will be called "Telepathy".
And the day before this news,The team from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and Tsinghua University jointly announced that the world's first quadriplegic case assisted by implantable epidural electrode brain-computer interface** has made a breakthrough in behavioral ability** and achieved autonomous brain control to drink water.
According to relevant sources, after three months of home training, the patient can now drive pneumatic gloves through EEG activities to achieve brain control functions such as drinking water independently, with a grasping accuracy rate of more than 90%. The patient's spinal cord injury improved in the ASIA clinical score and sensory evoked potential measurement.
So what's the difference between the two?
Different from the "telepathy" technology, China's project has achieved two major breakthroughs in wireless minimally invasive, on the one hand, through the implantation of the brain-computer interface NEO, the internal machine is buried in the skull, and the electrodes are covered in the epidural, which ensures the quality of intracranial signals without damaging the nerve tissue; On the other hand, it uses near-field wireless power supply and signal transmission, and the internal machine implanted in the skull does not require batteries.
In fact, as early as October, China carried out the first operation, and carried out international and domestic implantable medical device clinical trial registration.
As an emerging industry, brain-computer interface has not yet opened a gap in core technology and market expansion. China has listed brain-computer connectivity as one of the key directions of future industrial innovation. There is no obvious backwardness in the design of core devices, and with the support of policies and resources, it is expected to achieve corner overtaking.
The China Electronics Standardization Institute predicts that the global brain-computer interface market will reach $3.7 billion by 2027. As far as the domestic market is concerned, according to the special report on qubits, by 2040, the comprehensive market size of China's brain-computer interface industry is expected to exceed 120 billion yuan.
Such a huge market prospect has also attracted many capital and enterprises to enter.
According to the report of the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, from 2013 to the third quarter of 2023, there have been nearly 800 global venture capital investments in the field of brain-computer interface, with a total amount of more than 10 billion US dollars, and more than 300 companies have been invested. Tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Huawei have stepped in the field of brain-computer interfaces.
In China, since the beginning of 2023, there have been more than 17 financing events in the brain-computer interface industry, and a total financing of nearly 1 billion yuan has been disclosed.
At present, brain-computer interfaces are mainly used in medical scenarios. Non-invasive brain-computer interface is mainly used in early screening and auxiliary diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases, and invasive brain-computer interface is mainly used in refractory brain diseases.
And in the non-medical field,Brain-computer interfaces are also expected to become the entrance to the next generation of the metaverse after VR ARWith the assistance of brain-computer interfaces, people's subjective imagination is expected to be transformed into reality through sensors, 3D printing, intelligent manufacturing and other means, and can transform the real world to a certain extent.
However, the brain-computer interface industry has a long cycle from R&D to implementation. It is generally believed in the industry that brain-computer interfaces will still be in the accumulation stage in the next three to five years, and it will still take five to 10 years to achieve large-scale commercialization, and there are many difficulties.