With Neuralink, Elon Musk wants to develop technologies so that people can communicate more with computers only with their thoughts. Next year, he hopes to take a step closer to that dream.

In April this year, the company uploaded a video on Youtube of the nine-year-old macaque Pager. She had had two of the company’s implants implanted, on each side of her brain, which made it possible for Pager to play the video game Pong without a hand control. The movements on the screen were determined by her brain activity.

In a live interview at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit on December 7, Elon Musk spoke about his latest plans. In 2022, he hopes to be able to test his brain chip on people with serious spinal cord injuries. An important prerequisite for this is that the US Food and Drug Administration approves the chip.

Elon Musk has previously stated that the technology would be tested on humans as early as the end of 2020.

Neuralink is currently conducting a series of tests to ensure that the chip is both safe and reliable, and that it can be removed without causing damage.

During the conference, Elon Musk also said that he believes that Neuralink has a chance to give a person with a spinal cord injury full body functionality again, ie that they could use their arms or walk again. Although he says he does not want to raise too much hope about this, he still states that he is sure that this is possible.