Six months after it made history with the first successful implant of a brain-computer interface in a human, Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. is growing its Texas footprint. The company is building a $14.7 million, 112,000-square-foot facility in Del Valle, an eastern suburb of Austin. A filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation shows the three-story building will have offices, a machine shop and a cleanroom for device manufacturing. It’s scheduled to be completed by next June.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink receives approval to start human trials of brain implants to control computers Neuralink, which was founded in 2016, achieved its goal of a neural-chip implant in a human subject earlier this year. In a January procedure at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, the company implanted its “Link” interface in the brain of Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old quadriplegic, to let him control a computer with his thoughts.
With brain implants, the ‘future’s gonna be weird’ While Neuralink’s developments provide hope for the estimated 180,000 people living with quadriplegia, the technology is not without controversy. The company performs animal testing on pigs and macaques to research the devices at labs in California and Texas, and staffers and regulators have raised concern about the company’s testing procedures. In February, U.S.