Chinese state media on Tuesday touted the emergence of a Chinese-made rival to Elon Musk’s Neuralink technology, a chip implanted in the brain that allows humans to directly interface with electronics.
Although China’s Global Times breathlessly hyped the Chinese Institute for Brain Research’s “Neucyber” chip as “China’s version of Neuralink,” the product on display at a laboratory in Beijing is far behind Neuralink, having not yet been implanted in a human host.
Global Times reporters were treated to a “magical scene” in which a monkey with a Neucyber chip made brainwave signals wobble on a computer monitor.
The project directors said the chip has been implanted in the monkey’s skull for almost a year and is “still able to collect high-quality signals.” The next step is designing an algorithm to decode the brainwaves, which would allow the monkey to control a robot arm. If that goes well, researchers hope to begin human trials within a year.
