In December 2021, Elon Musk said that neuralink will implant their first brain computer interface into the device and human body before 2022, hoping that it can help the quadriplegic recover their whole body function. At present, it is waiting for relevant approval. Previously, musk had shown monkeys and pigs implanted with brain computer interfaces, which aroused heated discussion in the industry. As a "black technology closest to the meta universe", brain computer interface has been gradually known by the public with Musk's repeated exposure.
Musk once said that it is expected to realize direct communication between brains within five years, and upload and download memories in the future, so as to realize "digital immortality" in science fiction. It sounds mysterious, but in fact, the academic community has studied brain computer interface for more than 40 years, and has a considerable scale of clinical application in medical fields such as cochlear implant and brain pacemaker (DBS). In January 2022, neuroxess, a company established only two months ago, completed the first round of financing of 97 million yuan, including Shanda and Sequoia China seed funds, with a financing volume of nearly 100 million becoming the largest early financing in China's brain computer interface field . Recently, blue whale finance interviewed Tao Hu and Peng Lei, the founders of the company, to explore the development context and future development trend of brain computer interface industry.
the first five years: let the patient return to normal
this is an invasive brain computer interface company of "benchmarking musk neuralink"
Tao Hu, the founder, is an authoritative expert in the fields of brain computer interface, artificial intelligence and micro nano sensing in China. He is now the deputy director of Shanghai Institute of Microsystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Peng Lei is a continuous entrepreneur. He founded SaaS company Ke Ruyun and was wholly acquired by Alibaba local life in 2019. He resigned as the former senior vice president of Alibaba local life. Brain tiger is a two track operation mode. Once the classmates of China University of science and technology met again 25 years later. Tao Hu is responsible for the breakthrough in scientific research, while Peng Lei is responsible for the landing of commercial products.
Brain computer interfaces are mainly divided into invasive and non-invasive. Peng Lei said that at present, some companies do non-invasive brain computer interfaces in the market. Because they can obtain less brain signals, the effects of products are relatively primary, such as improving attention and helping sleep, which are more health-care application scenarios. " this function is actually a bit like back good , but the long-term direction to give full play to the maximum potential of brain computer interface must be invasive, so it is possible to do high-throughput decoding of brain cells and neurons in our brain. At the level of path, the threshold of invasive industry is very high, which is what neuralink and brain tiger are doing."
At present, invasive BCI products are mainly used in clinical treatment. Compared with the frontier exploration in scientific research, the landing of BCI medical products needs to go through a cycle of about 5 years. When will consumer brain computer interface products come and achieve man-machine symbiosis? Peng Lei mentioned that "the singularity is coming" once predicted that by 2045, mankind can upload the whole idea to the computer and become a digital immortal, but there is no way to accurately predict when it can be achieved.
Referring to the comparison with neuralink, Tao Hu said: "we are better in some key core technologies, but in fact, musk needs to do better in the whole system." Tao Hu introduced to blue whale finance that the benchmarking dimension with neuralink can be divided into core performance and user friendliness. In terms of core performance, brain Tiger Technology and neuralink are even better at one level.
First, according to the public report of neuralink, the number of single device channels of its electrode is 1024, while the current number of single device channels of brain tiger is 2640, which can collect more neurons. The number of neurons in the human brain is about 86 billion. If it can reach millions of channels, it is expected to achieve more accurate simulation and reproduction of the whole functional area of the brain. Therefore, in fact, the rise space of the whole technology is huge.
Secondly, neuralink adopted craniotomy combined with Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) assisted brain electrode implantation. The diameter of the implanted wound was more than 2cm. Brain tiger adopted craniotomy free surgery. The diameter of the implanted wound was less than 0.7mm, with less relative trauma and invasion. At the world artificial intelligence conference in 2021, Tao Hu team relied on the core technology of "craniotomy free minimally invasive implantable high-throughput flexible brain computer interface system", Won the highest award "excellent artificial intelligence citation Award" they predict that when the implantation operation is reduced to the difficulty and trauma of "myopia intraocular lens implantation", it may be possible to achieve the landing of consumer industry
Third, Tao Hu's team adopted silk protein as the material, which has improved in the control of rejection reaction and carrier working time. Tao Hu revealed that the team has developed artificial recombinant spider silk protein based on genetic engineering technology. It absorbs the genes of natural spider silk and makes artificial protein after breeding in E. coli. The protein fragments, functions and mechanical strength prepared in this way can be customized and can be used for product iteration in the future.
Tao Hu admitted that neuralink has obvious advantages in terms of user friendliness. Its brain computer interface product is only the size of a coin. It completes charging and wireless data transmission through a movable external device. At present, brain tiger uses separate devices, so neuralink will be better in terms of user friendliness (if the existing products can pass clinical ethics).
is the same as neuralink. Brain tiger also plans to carry out human clinical trials this year. has passed the clinical ethics approval, but for a company that has just been established for four months, it seems to be in a "hurry". Why should we carry out application test on human body as soon as possible?
Tao Hu's reason is simple: saving people is the first thing "There are more than 100000 patients with frostbite in China, and the average survival time after diagnosis is only 2.5 to 3 years. I have been in direct contact with many patients with frostbite. As long as I see new drugs and new treatment methods, they have to try them whenever there is a 1% chance. Many patients ask us to operate on them as soon as possible, even regardless of ethics, because the terminal disease is too painful. But I keep holding them down and tell them that they must be in legal cooperation Do it in a safe situation. "
Tao Hu said that the team has worked closely with clinicians for many years, so the opening of naohu's product form fully combines the demands of clinicians and patients, which is different from Musk's development mode. The company takes more account of the input of application end.
the second five years: the industrial scale will exceed US $10 trillion
The first institutional investor and director of brain tiger is Chen Tianqiao, the founder of Shanda network, the former richest man in China. This is also Chen Tianqiao's first investment in the field of brain computer interface in China.
Compared with other industries, the landing cycle of brain computer interface products is relatively long, which has deterred many investors from brain tiger, but Chen Tianqiao gave full support. He said: "10 years is not long. As long as we stick to it, step by step, 20 or 30 years, I am willing to support it." Peng Lei said that Chen Tianqiao basically devoted the rest of his life to the cause of brain science. They jointly believe that brain science is the brightest pearl in the crown of human science in the coming decades.
According to cnr.com, at present, the market scale of brain computer interface optical equipment in China has been at the level of one billion yuan, and the comprehensive market scale is expected to reach 125 billion yuan in 2040.
Brain tiger technology has greater imagination on the future market of brain computer interface. Peng Lei predicted that the imagination space of brain computer interface in the medical part has exceeded 150 billion US dollars. At present, the market scale of medical devices regulated by neural intervention has reached 2 billion to 3 billion US dollars. In the future, the industry will expand by several billion US dollars for each additional indication, such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. When the technology continues to evolve, it may be possible to recover from high paraplegia, wake up vegetative people, treat Alzheimer's disease, etc. as a reference, at present, the scientific research investment of pharmaceutical companies outside China in seeking treatment for Alzheimer's disease has been close to US $600 billion.
and in these medical scenarios, BCI will appear as the optimal solution or better solution, and it is very normal that the treatment cost of a single patient is millions or millions
Tao Hu predicted the number of patients. He told blue whale finance that the demand was calculated according to the pyramid level. The number of terminally ill patients such as frostbite on the top floor was 100000 in China, 1 million people with high paraplegia on the next floor, 10 million people with blindness and aphasia, and about 20 to 30 million people with severe depression, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. In this way, the number of relevant patients in China has exceeded 40 million.
The founders predict that in the second five years, brain tiger will have the opportunity to turn brain computer interface into a product for ordinary people . Tao Hu said that after the implementation of the brain computer interface consumer industry, the company will target Apple and Google, build the platform and ecology with products and services as the core, become the core tool in the industrial chain and provide the solution ability of the overall scheme.
Compared with AR and VR, Peng Lei said that BCI will be a technical metabolism and become a leap track. Once the track starts, it may reopen a new era just like apple. At present, relevant concepts, such as NFT, engine and exchange in the metauniverse, are predicted to exceed $100 billion in 10 years. Peng Lei told blue whale finance that there is no ceiling for imagination in this regard.
Both founders are full of science fiction fans. They said that their favorite sci-fi works are "three bodies" and "matrix", and "three bodies" has conceptual input to the research and development of team technology. Tao Hu imagined that with the development of technology, he could reach the scientific and technological level of avatar in his lifetime. In addition, he believes that in the future, as long as science and technology can develop to maintain the operation of the brain, the body can be replaced or even die he takes trisomy as an example. The protagonist finally gives the brain to the trisomy, and the other mechanical shells are installed by the trisomy. Tao Hu firmly believes that in the future, when the brain and body are separated and the body is not aging, the brain computer interface can help the brain ensure normal interaction, shorten the time of interstellar travel, and human beings are no longer limited to the body when going to outer space.
He believes that musk also thinks so. Musk founded Tesla, a pure electric vehicle enterprise, space X, a rocket launching enterprise, Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) power generation enterprise, solar city and neuralink, a brain computer interface company. Combined with Musk's plan to immigrate to Mars mentioned many times, from the perspective of layout, Musk can only make greater contribution to the vision planning.
They look forward to the future very much.
