Elon Musk says his Neuralink company has successfully implanted one of its wireless brain chips in a human for the first time.

While Mr Musk’s involvement raises the profile of Neuralink, he faces rivals, some of who have a track record dating back two decades. Utah-based Blackrock Neurotech implanted its first of many brain-computer interfaces in 2004.

Musk hopes his company will be able to connect human brains to computers, and cure a range of conditions, including obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia, as well as enabling web browsing and telepathy.

Precision Neuroscience, formed by a Neuralink co-founder, also aims to help people with paralysis. And its implant resembles a very thin piece of tape that sits on the surface of the brain and can be implanted via a “cranial micro-slit”, which it says is a much simpler procedure.

Existing devices have also generated results. In two separate recent US scientific studies, implants were used to monitor brain activity when a person tried to speak, which could then be decoded to help them communicate.