Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink initially outlined a fairly active market development program, although so far the manufacturer’s brain implant has only been installed in two patients participating in clinical trials on a voluntary basis. Musk himself is confident that in ten years millions of people will be able to use such chips.
Image source: Neuralink
On his social network X, the billionaire literally said the following: “If all goes well, then in a few years we will have hundreds of people with Neuralink chips, in five years perhaps tens of thousands, in ten years millions.” The company’s current efforts are focused on using brain implants to restore limb mobility to people who have lost it as a result of injury or disease, and the progress of the first patient with such an implant suggests that these hopes are not in vain at the level of recreating the interface.
However, Musk’s ambitions traditionally do not stop there. He also plans to develop an implant that can restore sight to people who have lost it. Such an initiative is not unique, but so far all attempts to achieve such a goal have had only limited success. In total, Neuralink has currently agreed with American regulators to conduct clinical trials of the first generation of the implant on three patients, and they should be completed in 2026. Musk previously admitted the idea of releasing bionic prostheses by Tesla, which people with implants implanted in the skull could literally control with the power of thought. This company intends to start producing humanoid robots, and therefore it will have the relevant experience.