Who is building brain-computer interfaces and why they are needed
The brain-computer interface (BCI) industry is experiencing an investment boom, presenting itself as a realization of science fiction in reality. Companies are competing to be the first to connect the human brain with the digital environment, promising not only assistance to paralyzed patients but also cognitive superpowers for healthy individuals.
By examining data from research teams, corporate reports, and the current state of affairs, ForkLog has analyzed the stage of technology and who actually shares the market.
Not Just Musk: Who Shares the Market
While our information bubble may suggest that all news revolves around the biotech company Neuralink, the market has long been divided into invasive, minimally invasive, and non-invasive solutions, with many independent teams making real breakthroughs.
Neuralink's main competitor is often cited as Synchron, whose Stentrode technology avoids open skull trepanation. The device is inserted through the jugular vein and positioned in a vessel near the motor cortex of the brain—this approach has propelled the company to the forefront in obtaining regulatory approvals.
Patients in the U.S. and Australia are already successfully controlling Apple devices with their thoughts, although the signal transmission through the blood vessel walls is somewhat limited in bandwidth.
A veteran and cornerstone of the industry is Blackrock Neurotech. Their wired Utah Array system has been integrated into cutting-edge academic research since 2004 and is rightly considered the gold standard. Dozens of patients have lived with these implants for many years, and the manufacturer is preparing for the commercial launch of an updated platform.
Source: Blackrock Neurotech.
Precision Neuroscience, a team formed by former employees of Elon Musk's company, offers interesting solutions. They have developed a thin electrode array that can be placed directly on the brain's surface through a minimal incision, completely avoiding the piercing of neural tissue.
Meanwhile, Tsinghua University in China is implementing a minimally invasive implant called NEO, which is secured under the skull bone and has already enabled a fully paralyzed patient to control a mechanical exoskeleton.
Source: South China Morning Post.
The BrainGate project also contributes to the foundational technologies, having tested thought-control algorithms for decades. Its founder, John Donoghue, was awarded the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Competition is intensifying: the biotech company Science Corporation raised $230 million in funding to create a unique implant called PRIMA. This device is designed to treat macular degeneration and can restore visual functions through retinal neuron stimulation.
Engineering is actively developing in various regions. The Russian project "Motorika" is creating high-tech prosthetic limbs with neural control.
Source: motorica.org.
At the same time, specialists from the HSE Center for Bioelectrical Interfaces are researching methods of non-invasive control and brain decoding of motor commands.
Moreover, a new era is opening up even for the general public thanks to Phantom Neuro, which announced in November 2025 the launch of a patient registry. This project will help find individuals with upper limb amputations to participate in clinical trials of new neurointerfaces.
Gates to the Matrix or Harsh Physics: Hardware Barriers
In startup presentations, the technological future appears as if from a science fiction movie; however, the bold claims from Silicon Valley representatives face physical and biological limitations in practice. The most significant barrier is the issue of rejection.
The brain is an aggressive environment for electronics. Tissues react to foreign microelectrodes by forming glial scars, which inevitably degrade the quality of neural impulse transmission. This harsh reality was faced by the first Neuralink patient: some of the chip's threads failed just weeks after implantation.
Next is the problem of bandwidth and energy consumption. Currently, systems can transmit hundreds of bits of information per second—enough for moving a cursor or playing a game of chess—but millions of channels are needed for full "telepathy."
Attempts to significantly increase computational power immediately exacerbate the issues of battery wear and system heating. An increase in temperature in the chip's operating zone by even one degree can lead to irreversible tissue damage, and this engineering deadlock still needs to be overcome.
Bold statements from Silicon Valley representatives often mask harsh hardware limitations. The main technological barrier is the quality of neural impulse transmission. Non-invasive methods (various EEG cap options) face a critical problem of signal distortion by the skull bones.
At a specialized conference at HSE, experts noted serious obstacles when using modern "dry" electrodes outside clinical laboratories. Sensor sensitivity heavily depends on humidity, skull structure, and the density of equipment fixation. Traditional gel electrodes easily provide reliable contact and high accuracy, but using gel-based equipment in everyday life is extremely uncomfortable.
Development Vector: From Medicine to Neurodata
Developers of neurointerfaces define their main task as restoring mobility, speech, and vision for people with disabilities. This approach helps technologies pass regulatory procedures, including FDA approval. However, as the industry evolves, medicine increasingly becomes a starting point for scaling commercial products: businesses are shifting their focus toward the cognitive augmentation market and solutions for enhancing healthy users' capabilities.
Neurointerfaces create a fundamentally new level of data collection. While smartphones can analyze your digital habits, BCIs can potentially record unconscious emotional reactions directly. Tech giants see this as a marketing tool capable of assessing advertising effectiveness at the neural level and turning thoughts into the fastest interface for control.
In addition to Big Tech, neuro-research has been actively funded for decades through government and defense initiatives. The U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency invests in developing non-verbal communication systems for battlefield communication, creating concepts for drone control without delays from human motor skills, and algorithms for mitigating stress and pain responses.
Industry representatives cite transhumanism and hybrid consciousness as the long-term prospects for sector development. Industry leaders assert that merging with machines is seen as a necessary condition for successfully competing with artificial intelligence in an era of increasing information exchange speeds.
This challenge is being partially addressed right now: researchers at Stanford University have successfully decoded impulses of "inner speech" for the first time, converting electrical signals from the brain cortex into basic conversational phonemes and text, which could minimize the need for physical attempts to move lips or type on a keyboard.
Hybrid Consciousness: Blurring the Boundaries of Identity
It is a misconception to think that installing a BCI is a linear process of reading parameters. Interacting with such technologies requires complex mutual co-adaptation. Machine learning algorithms continuously adjust to the user, while the human nervous system, according to recent publications in Nature Machine Intelligence, literally retrains itself to generate impulses in a way that makes it easier for the program to classify them.
As a result, the boundary between the biological and synthetic is gradually blurred, creating an effect of agency dilution. Since there is an external decoding algorithm between a person's basic intention and the action performed, which "fills in" the signal, users quickly lose the ability to distinguish where their personal will ends and the neural network's assistance begins.
A profound illusion of embodiment arises, similar to the rubber hand illusion, but on a fundamental level. The tool ceases to be perceived as an external object, and controlling a cursor with thought exhausts a person just like a full workout at the gym.
New Dimensions of Privacy
Direct symbiosis exposes potential threats to privacy. Algorithms are already capable of decoding internal dialogues and images with varying success, creating a precedent for a lack of privacy even within one's own mind. Brain waves become a detailed imprint of individual emotions and mental health characteristics.
Preventing potential leaks and manipulations compels the world to seek new contours for regulating neurodata. In the U.S., a bill MIND Act is advancing to protect citizens' digital thoughts, while the Federal Trade Commission is developing regulatory frameworks to prohibit unauthorized commercialization of human thoughts.
Concerns over privacy loss are rapidly reflected even in art: new theatrical productions, such as The Moon is Always Full, directly raise philosophical questions about the safety of clinical trials and potential leaks of digital copies of the mind to AI programmers.
From Science Fiction to Thought Monopoly
The neurointerface industry has permanently left the pages of science fiction and entered a pragmatic stage of engineering refinement. Today, these systems remain mere prototypes of complex controllers, and their primary current task is to provide undeniable medical benefits. However, the corporate race is not solely about wheelchairs.
Transnational companies are creating a platform for the next iteration of the internet, where smartphones and keyboards will become technological relics. Now, the main question of the upcoming paradigm is who will own the full rights to the information generated directly by your neurons.