On January 29, Musk said on social media that his brain-computer interface company Neuralink has completed the first human brain device implantation surgery. According to Musk, Neuralink's first product is called Telepathy. Once implanted, you can control your phone or computer with just your mind, and you can control almost any device through them. Musk said the first human patient had received an implant from his brain-computer interface company Neuralink and was recovering well. Preliminary results show that neuronal spike detection is promising.
Brain-computer interface is simply the connection between the human brain and the outside world (computer or other external devices) for direct communication. However, the safety of its implantation into the human body has been the cause of controversy and concern. Implantation of electrodes by craniotomy is very risky, and foreign body invasion can also trigger an immune response and the formation of scar tissue, which may also affect the quality of the electrode signal.
In 2016, a total of eight founders, including Elon Musk, co-founded Neuralink, a brain-computer connectivity startup. At the beginning of its establishment, Musk said that the plan for the next five years is to allow humans to communicate directly through their brains without using language. In the future, people's consciousness can be uploaded to a cloud space with the help of brain-computer interfaces, and finally realize the "immortality of consciousness" of human beings.
At the end of 2022, a monkey named Sake showed the outside world how to type using only a virtual keyboard with his brain, and it was Neuralink who did it. The demo** shows that the monkey can follow the key highlighted in yellow on the screen by the neuralink, and the N1 chip implanted in the monkey's skull can read brain activity to move the cursor on the screen. And behind this is the support of brain-computer connection. In November 2023, Neuralink completed a total of 3$200 million (about 23.)0.9 billion yuan), with a valuation of more than $5 billion.
But star companies are just as controversial. The "brain-computer interface" track and research field to which Neuralink belongs are divided into two major directions: invasive and non-invasive, and the invasive direction that requires implantation of chip devices in the human brain is quite a safety challenge.
In May 2023, Neuralink received FDA approval to initiate a first-in-class clinical trial of a brain implant device. The company also announced on its official blog that month that it had been approved to start recruiting volunteers, adding that those with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may be eligible for recruitment.
"Just think about it to control your phone or computer and use them to control any device," Musk said. The initial users will be those who have lost their limbs. As you can imagine, Stephen Hawking can communicate faster than a typist or auctioneer. That's what we're aiming for. ”
Thousands of people are waiting in line to get a brain implant from Musk's brain-computer interface company Neuralink. The above news was revealed by biographer Ashley Vance at the end of 2023. It is reported that Neuralink expects annual revenue of up to 100 million US dollars (about 7 yuan.) within 5 years$1.8 billion).
The completion of the first human brain-computer interface implant trial means that Neuralink continues to take a big step forward. If brain-computer articulation can be applied in real life, some patients who cannot communicate normally, such as those suffering from Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, can communicate with the outside world through scientific and technological means.
Not only Musk's company, according to the United States, there are also many American companies developing brain-computer connectors, such as synchron, paradromics, etc., and some companies have also carried out human clinical trials.
At the same time, giants at home and abroad, such as Huawei, Google, and Meta, have made layouts in this field. On December 26, 2023, the "Research Report on the Development and Application of Brain-Computer Connectivity (2023)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and the Brain-Computer Interface Industry Alliance pointed out that brain-computer connectivity has a wide range of adaptability, can be combined with a variety of products and equipment and applied in multiple scenarios, and is fully integrated into multiple fields to play an enabling role, thereby promoting the birth of new products and providing new ideas for traditional solutions. There are no less than 30 clear application directions in the downstream of the brain-computer interface industry, which are mainly divided into two categories: medical and non-medical. Medical care is still the main industrialization direction of brain-computer interface, with 56% of downstream enterprises in the medical direction and 44% of non-medical enterprises such as consumer, industry, and education.
However, there is still a long way to go between the completion of the implantation trial of the first human brain-computer interface and its commercialization. The technology goes through multiple rounds of testing and review before it can be marketed, and ethics are the biggest challenge before it can be put to use. Moreover, it is still difficult for the general public to feel the brain-computer interface, because there is no explosive product or application that can be popularized on a large scale.
Huaan** believes that the development of the brain-computer interface industry chain is still in the early stage, and the upstream equipment has not yet achieved standardized mass production, and self-developed brain-computer interface chips and algorithms have become core technical barriers. The high threshold of brain-computer interface chips is reflected in the challenging design of analog circuits, the high requirements for low power consumption, and the wireless communication technology with wireless energy transmission.
Comprehensive report by Beijing Business Daily.