Neuralink is the world's highest-profile BCI company, co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016 with the long-term mission of merging human cognition with artificial intelligence. The company's N1 implant, first placed in a human in January 2024, uses 1,024 flexible polymer threads inserted by the proprietary R1 surgical robot. Neuralink's FDA IDE for the PRIME study (2023) marked a major regulatory milestone after years of preclinical development. The company has expanded its PRIME study enrollment and is targeting approval for ALS, quadriplegia, and eventually blindness restoration. Neuralink is vertically integrated, developing its own chip (N1), surgical robot (R1), and the entire software stack for neural decoding.