Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. live-streamed an update with its first brain implant patient Wednesday, showing a quadriplegic man who was able to play video games and online chess using his mind.

Neuralink is a brain technology startup founded by Musk. Its implant allows a patient to use their thoughts to control a computer. Musk has said that the company will start by working with patients who have severe physical limitations like cervical spinal cord impairment or quadriplegia.

In the video on Wednesday, which was streamed on Musk’s social platform X, the patient, Noland Arbaugh, was able to use his computer to play chess and the game Civilization VI. “I had given up on playing that game,” he said.

“It has already changed my life,” Arbaugh said. “The surgery was super easy.”

Arbaugh, 29, said he sustained a spinal cord injury in a “freak diving accident” eight years ago. He also said he was released from the hospital a day after the Neuralink procedure in January, which went smoothly. He added that there was “still work to be done” to refine the technology.

Neuralink is not the only company working on brain devices that connect with computers. Modern demonstrations of cursor control by using thoughts have taken place in other humans with various types of implants, such as those deployed by the Braingate consortium of research institutions and hospitals.

However, the Neuralink device contains more electrodes than other devices, suggesting it may have more potential applications in future. The Neuralink device works without needing a wired connection to external devices.

  - Bloomberg