Elon Musk-owned

Neuralink

is reportedly testing

brain implants

in monkeys that can eventually give humans "superpowers," including capabilities beyond normal vision. While the device’s initial goal may be to restore vision in visually impaired patients, the company's long-term objective for its

Blindsight device

includes enabling "

superhuman capabilities

" such as infrared sight, the tech billionaire predicted in March. Now, a company engineer has revealed that its tests using brain implants in monkeys has enable one of primate to see something which is not physically present. At a recent conference, Neuralink engineer Joseph O’Doherty announced that the device, Blindsight, stimulated vision-linked brain areas in a monkey. During tests, the monkey moved its eyes toward what researchers wanted to make the monkey’s brain to visualise at least two-thirds of the time.According to a report by Bloomberg, these findings are Neuralink’s first public disclosures regarding test progress with Blindsight. Earlier this year, Musk confirmed that Blindsight has been tested in monkeys for several years, with human trials planned for later this year.

This area of research represents a closely observed frontier in brain device development, exploring how technology may treat challenging medical conditions. However, it's important to note that the device is not yet approved for human use in the US, and it remains to be determined how the findings from animal studies would translate to humans.

Neuralink executive O’Doherty added that the company eventually intends to pair the implanted chip with specialised glasses to help display the enhanced visual data. Testing in monkeys offers practical advantages, since a monkey’s visual cortex lies nearer the brain’s surface. For human applications, Neuralink plans to use its surgical robot to insert the implant into deeper cortical regions.Musk sees these medical achievements as steps toward speeding up human communication and “mitigating the risk of digital super-intelligence,” a vision he outlined in 2024. Apart from this device, his work on brain–machine interfaces is also running alongside AI development at xAI Corp.