By Sandrine Ceurstemont

Earlier this year, Elon Musk’s brain-chip company Neuralink released a video of a paralyzed man playing chess on a computer using his thoughts alone. He was the start-up’s first patient to have one of their chips implanted in his brain; it is able to read brain activity and translate it into intended commands that are then sent wirelessly to a device to carry out a task.

“It is definitely something where you feel that the science fiction movies of your childhood are starting to become reality,” said Balint Varkuti during a panel discussion at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, a deep-tech event held in Paris, France in March. Varkuti is CEO of Ceregate, a brain-machine interface venture based in Munich, Germany.

Neuralink’s chip is an example of a brain-computer interface (BCI), a system that allows a direct communication pathway between a brain and a computer. In this case, the device needs to be surgically implanted in the brain to allow for brain signals to be picked up in high resolution.