Brain chips: the Sydney researchers ‘miles ahead’ of Elon Musk’s Neuralink

Multiple Australian projects are on the cutting edge of neurotech breakthroughs and man-machine interfaces - raising questions of security and privacy for human minds

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Brain-computer interface technology is at the core of movies such as Ready Player One, The Matrix and Avatar. But outside the realm of science fiction, BCI is being used on Earth to help paralysed people communicate, to study dreams and to control robots.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk announced in January - to much fanfare - that his neurotechnology company Neuralink had implanted a computer chip into a human for the first time. In February, he announced that the patient was able to control a computer mouse with their thoughts.