Chip in the human brain: Elon Musk’s Neuralink collaborates with a rival start-up

Elon Musk founded Neuralink in 2016, and the company aims to create an interface that controls machines with the brain. So far the company has managed to get the video game slider checked Pong to a macaque with the power of thought alone, but experimentation on humans has not yet begun. To speed up his business, according to reports
Reuters
, it appears Musk now wants to invest in rival company Synchron. It is unclear whether Tesla’s CEO is aiming to fund Synchron’s research or wants to start a collaboration, and according to the source the company has not yet decided whether or not to accept Musk’s offer, but the latter is determined to make to advance research on the human-machine connection which in Neuralink is progressing too slowly. In fact, Musk’s company announced in 2019 that it would begin human trials the following year, but only in January of this year did it request approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has not yet arrived. Synchron, on the other hand, announced in July that it had implanted an interface into the motor cortex of a human patient for the first time in the US. The company also performed studies in Australia, with four people having received an implant for more than a year. The primary purpose is to make it possible for people with mobility impairments to control electronic devices with their minds, but the applications of the system can be endless.