Valve CEO's Neuralink Competitor Developing Chip to More Closely Link Human Brain to PC

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell is developing a chip that will allow the human brain to interact more closely with a personal computer. At the same time, it is clarified that it is not about creating a full-fledged implant, writes UNN with reference to The Verge.

Details

The process was launched more than ten years ago when the company's psychologists studied people's biological reactions to video games. Valve once considered using monitors in the earlobes for its first virtual reality headset. The company publicly explored the idea of "brain-computer" interfaces for gaming at the GDC exhibition in 2019.

But Newell decided to develop this idea. That same year, he quietly registered a new startup, Starfish Neuroscience, which develops interfaces between the brain and computers, and which has already announced plans this year to release its first brain chip.

The first post on the Starfish blog, noticed by Valve reviewer Brad Lynch, makes it clear that this is not a full-fledged implant yet. It is a special "electrophysiological" chip designed to record brain activity (similar to how Neuralink can "read your mind" so patients can interact with computers) and stimulate the brain (to treat diseases). At the same time, Starfish does not claim to have already created systems for powering it or implants that can be inserted into the human head.

"We expect our first chips to appear in late 2025, and we are interested in finding partners for whom such a chip will open up new and exciting opportunities," writes Starfish neuroengineer Nate Cermak, suggesting that Starfish may partner with other companies to create wireless power or even a final brain implant.

But the goal, Starfish writes, is a smaller and less invasive implant than its competitors, which can "provide simultaneous access to multiple areas of the brain," not just one, and which does not require a battery. Using only 1.1 milliwatts during "normal recording," Starfish claims it can operate with wireless power transmission.

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Here are the current chip specifications:

• low power consumption: 1.1 mW total power consumption during normal recording;

• physically small: 2 x 4 mm (BGA pitch 0.3 mm);

• capable of both recording (impulses and LFP) and stimulation (biphasic impulses);

• 32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75 kHz;

• 1 current source for stimulation on arbitrary electrode pairs;

• integrated impedance monitoring and stimulation voltage transient measurement;

• digital embedded data processing and burst detection allows the device to operate over low-bandwidth wireless interfaces;

• manufactured using TSMC 55 nm process technology.

For comparison, the Neuralink N1 has 1024 electrodes on 64 brain-implanted threads, a chip that consumed about 6 milliwatts as of 2019, a battery that needs to be wirelessly charged periodically, and the full implant (again, not just the chip) is about 23 mm wide and 8 mm thick. It is reported that the company, headed by Elon Musk, has already implanted it in three people. Although some threads broke off from the brain of the first patient, he is still functioning and giving interviews.

Starfish says it may be important to connect to multiple parts of the brain at the same time, not just one area, to address problems like Parkinson's disease.

There is growing evidence that a number of neurological disorders are associated with circuit-level dysfunction, in which communication between brain regions may be improperly regulated.

In addition to several simultaneous brain implants, the company's updated website states that it is working on a "precision hyperthermia device" to destroy tumors with targeted heat, as well as a robot-controlled transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system to read the brain and treat neurological conditions such as bipolar disorder and depression.

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