Elon Musk’s supremacy in the implantable brain chips industry seems to be in danger as a Swiss University unearthed its plans to develop an even smaller neuro chip than Musk’s Neuralink.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne announced that it had developed a “next-generation miniaturized brain-machine interface” that can be implanted in the brains of patients suffering from mobility diseases like Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or spinal cord problems.
After the implant, patients who develop progressive motor impairments over the years will be able to live normal lives, which will enable them to do daily routine tasks, majorly related to word processing.
This brain interface will specialize in interpreting brain signals emitted during writing, speaking, and sentence construction. If successful, this solution can be a breakthrough in managing progressive mobility diseases such as Parkinson’s and others, in which the affected person gradually loses the ability to maintain control of different body muscles, including but not limited to speech.
The chip records the brain’s neural activity for text-related issues and processes it in real time to produce perceived output on a connected screen. Compared to Elon Musk’s neural link, which is the size of a small coin, this Swiss chip is only 8 square millimeters large, which increases its likelihood of not intervening with other brain processes, which it is not meant to change.
Mahsa Shoaran’s Integrated Neurotechnologies Laboratory hosted the experiments that led to the development of the chip. Shoran has praised its accuracy and low power consumption, which make this chip different.
They insisted that the Swiss chip would efficiently advance the communication abilities of the otherwise impaired person. The chip is currently being tested for various roles, such as recognizing handwriting, decoding speeches, and controlling movements. Some tests indicate that it can recognize handwriting with almost 91% accuracy.
Although the chip can currently decode 31 characters, the manufacturers believe this capability will soon be increased to 100 characters.
Before this development, Musk’s Neuralink had largely dominated the implantable chip market, with some competitors emerging occasionally. Over the years, Neuralink has made an exceptional team of experts in artificial intelligence, brain science, and biochemistry in the hope of making a brain-implantable interface.
Neuralink’s most iconic win remains the 2021 successful implant on a Macaque that played Pong on a computer through its mind after the experiment.
However, such testing has also brought Musk under severe scrutiny as reports emerged that his company’s experimentation on monkeys resulted in their deaths. Musk denied the accusations but never managed to silence the critics, who still claim that his biotech startup used monkeys for capitalistic gains. Earlier this year, Neuralink made its first human implant.
