Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is considering investing in Synchron, a brain-chip developer competing with his company, Neuralink, which is working in the same space.
According to the information in TRT News, Musk reached out to Thomas Oxley, the founder and CEO of Synchron, to investigate a possible venture in the past weeks. Four people following the issue stated that the talks are far from finalizing and it is still unclear whether an agreement will be reached.
Synchron, based in New York, is a few steps ahead of Neuralink in getting regulatory approval to test brain implants in humans, and last year got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Prior to that, he conducted a separate round of human trials on four people in Australia and gathered valuable data for future testing.
Although Musk has repeatedly hinted at human testing for Neuralink in the near future, it has not yet been authorized for this use.
Unlike Synchron’s device, installing Neuralink requires a major surgical operation involving cuts in the human skull, possibly marking slower progress.