Neuralink is building an implantable brain-computer interface — a coin-sized chip that reads neurons directly. Its first patients, paralysed from the neck down, now move cursors, play games and design in CAD using thought alone. This is what it is, who built it, and where it's going.
A quarter-sized chip that replaces the skull it removes, reading the brain through hair-thin threads.
The N1 is a hermetically sealed implant about the size of a large coin (23 mm), fitted flush into a piece of skull the surgery removes. It is wireless and battery-powered, charged inductively through the scalp, and streams neural data to a phone or computer over Bluetooth. Musk brands the product "Telepathy."
From the chip trail 64 ultra-flexible polymer threads, each thinner than a human hair (about 5 µm), carrying 1,024 electrodes total (the design supports up to 3,072). They are woven a few millimetres into the motor cortex, close enough to individual neurons to read the electrical spikes that encode intended movement.
Human hands can't place threads that fine without tearing blood vessels, so a purpose-built robot, R1, does it. Using needles and computer vision, R1 inserts each thread individually, steering around vasculature. Neuralink's goal is a fully automated procedure completed in under an hour, without full general anaesthesia.
Co-founded Neuralink in 2016 and remains its key financial backer and public face, framing the long-term mission as high-bandwidth "human-AI symbiosis."
Operations director and CEO overseeing the company, alongside a team of neurosurgeons, robotics engineers and ML specialists who built the R1 robot and the neural decoding stack.
The first human recipient (implanted January 2024), quadriplegic after a diving accident. He uses the implant to play chess and Civilization VI, browse the web and move a cursor by thought alone.
The second recipient, who used the device to design 3D objects in CAD software and play fast-paced games like Counter-Strike 2 — a step up in fine, continuous control.
One of the first UK participants, receiving his implant in London as the trials expanded internationally across the US, UK, Canada and the UAE.
More than two dozen people have now received the implant globally as Neuralink moves from single demonstrations into multi-centre international clinical trials.
The flagship study for people with quadriplegia from spinal-cord injury or ALS. Participants control computer mice, keyboards, robotic arms and powered wheelchairs directly from brain signals — restoring independence lost to paralysis.
Aims to decode intended or "silent" speech from the brain into real-time synthesized voice or text, for people who have lost the ability to speak from ALS or stroke. Granted an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation.
An implant in the visual cortex, fed by an external camera, aiming to give sight to blind people — even those blind from birth, if the visual cortex is intact. Also holds FDA Breakthrough Device status; early vision would be low-resolution and monochrome.
From motor control today toward multi-system restoration, automated surgery and, ultimately, a high-bandwidth link between brains and machines.
Channel density. Today's 1,024 electrodes are a starting point. Neuralink is targeting arrays of 10,000 to 25,000+ channels to capture far more of the brain at once, and multi-implant setups placing chips in the motor, visual and speech cortices simultaneously.
Physical control. Beyond screens, the near-term clinical extension connects brain output to robotic arms, powered wheelchairs, and eventually functional electrical stimulation suits that could reactivate a patient's own paralysed limbs by bypassing the damaged spinal cord.
Surgical scale. Upgrades to the R1 (and a future R2) aim to handle the entire procedure — from micro-craniotomy to closing the scalp — in under an hour, the key to moving from a handful of patients to high-volume, insurance-reimbursed care.
The long game. Further out, Neuralink talks about a "Deep" program reaching subcortical structures to treat Parkinson's, depression and chronic pain — and the founding ambition of a high-bandwidth interface that narrows the latency gap between human thought and artificial intelligence.
> Sources: neuralink.com · FDA breakthrough-device announcements · company trial updates. Trial details are self-reported and evolving.