Valve Founder’s Neural Interface Company Set to Launch First Brain Chip This Year

Hey, so I stumbled on this wild update about a thing you probably never thought you’d read: brain chips. Yep, you heard me right. Gabe Newell, the dude from Valve, yep that Gabe, his startup Starfish Neuroscience is all about these next-gen, barely-there brain chips. They might be coming out sooner than you’d expect. Crazy, right?

So, Starfish just threw out this mad blog update saying they’re working on this super tiny, ultra-low power chip with imec. I swear, the tech stuff always blows my mind. These chips are meant for brain implants that do all sorts of mind-bending stuff like reading your brain and sending signals back. Could be a game-changer for some pretty tricky neurological issues that you usually can’t fix easily. Think of it like a brain USB, but not like the scary sci-fi kind. I imagine Newell talking about it and it’s like, this man knows things.

Let me paint a picture: this chip, it’s about 2x4mm. Yeah, for real. If someone told me I’d be geeking out over a brain chip spec sheet from a guy who made video games, I’d laugh in their face. But here we are. It’s small, doesn’t need much power, and can do all these electrical magic tricks—reads brain signals and even sends some back.

Reading up on this, I got pulled into a rabbit hole. It’s wild that Starfish wants to fix what’s clunky about current tech—like Musk’s Neuralink which kind of just picks a spot in your brain and stays there. Starfish wants theirs to be all over the brain, less surgery hassle. Who loves surgery? No one.

Anyway—hold up—back to this chip. Super low power at 1.1 mW, 32 electrode sites, tiny size, and all that cool stuff like onboard processing which means it could buzz your brain wirelessly. Built with TSMC, those brainy folks—you get it.

So, what’s the next step? Seems they’re calling in the brain nerds who are into wireless power and implants to join their nerdfest before it hits the market in 2025. Feeling like we’re walking into some sci-fi movie where real life becomes a game?

Oh, and Newell had this bonkers chat about moving us closer to a Matrix-style world. Imagine plugging into your brain’s motor cortex or visual cortex like it’s an app on your phone. Sounds nuts, but he believes we’re there. He said something about how the brain is all good at some wiring and clumsy at getting the cold system working—how weird is that?

I mean, way back in 2019, this dude, Mike Ambinder from Valve, was already chattering about brain-to-game interfaces at some big video game conference. You could actually start to understand player behaviors and experiences. How cool is that?

Big thanks to Brad ‘SadlyItsBradley’ Lynch for getting us the scoop.

So, here we go folks. Brainy stuff that’s making our heads spin, but fascinating all the same.