Neuralink Makes Its History By Completing Its First-ever Human Implant
2min read It seems that Elon Musk's previous claims about human trials of brain-computer interface are not unfounded- over this weekend, Musk stated on his social media that his neurotechnology startup Neuralink has successfully implanted its device into the first human patient, who is currently recovering well.
According to Musk, this first product that Neuralink is developing will be named Telepathy. Musk notes that functioning properly, this brain-computer chip will assist patients with severe neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS to control electronic devices through thought and to communicate with the outside world by typing or accessing social media. 
Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer, Musk wrote on his social media, expressing his future vision for the chip.
However, despite all kinds of visions, this human clinical trial is just the first step toward the commercialization journey of Neuralink.
Following the route, medical devices usually need to go through multiple rounds of frequent data safety collection and testing before receiving approval for commercialization. According to some experts, Neuralink may need several years or even more than a decade to officially receive commercial use permission from the FDA.
Yet, in the emerging field of brain-computer interface, industry competition has already started at an early stage: since 2014, as the level of technology maturity rose and relevant products began to be accepted by the market, new companies have consistently been entering the arena, with the number increasing at around 10 each year.
Among these new companies, besides traditional medical device companies, more and more internet tech companies from both domestic and international regions are also entering the race— the list includes industry titans like Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, and Baidu.
With an increasing number of powers joining this competition, the scale of the brain-computer interface industry has also begun to expand rapidly: according to McKinsey's prediction, over the next 10 to 20 years, the global brain-computer interface industry will generate an economic value of 70 billion to 200 billion US dollars, showing broad application prospects.
Among these, the market scale of China's brain-computer interface is expected to reach 125 billion RMB by 2040. Compared with the market size of around 1 billion RMB currently, this indicates that over the next 20 years, the compound annual growth rate of China's brain-computer interface market will reach 26%.
Currently, overseas, besides Musk's Neuralink, companies such as Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, Paradromics, and Blackrock Neurotech are all working hard to develop systems that can decode brain signals and translate them into commands for external technologies.
For instance, Paradromics plans to launch its first trial involving human patients in the first half of this year. Precision Neuroscience already carried out its first human clinical study last year.
However, it seems that Synchron, favored by Gates and Bezos, should be the front-runner among these companies: as early as 2021, a patient implanted with the Synchron chip has successfully posted on the company CEO Tom Oxley's Twitter account using this technology.
In China, companies including Hanwei Technology and iFlytek have also preemptively set foot in the relevant field of the brain-computer interface, with related technologies already in the research stage.
Now, as more companies step into the competition, including Musk's Neuralink, it appears that following Artificial Intelligence, the industry battle royale for brain-computer interface has also begun.