TL;DR
Investors just put about $70 million behind a Chinese company building chips that aim to give sight back to people who have lost it. Nanochap, based in Hangzhou, works on two routes at once: a 320-electrode implant that stimulates the retina at the back of the eye, which TechNode reports is now in clinical trials with three people implanted, and a far denser 1,280-electrode implant that would stimulate the brain's vision center directly, which has not yet been tested in people. The money arrives as the field picks up speed: a retinal chip from Science Corp went on sale in Europe in July after helping trial patients read about five more lines of an eye chart, and Elon Musk said on Nov. 2 that Neuralink's Blindsight vision implant is "ready," awaiting only regulators. More well-funded teams chasing the same goal means more shots at giving people their sight back. The account is a secondary report, with results from the three implanted people still to come. For our odds on when a sight chip like this could reach patients in China and beyond, and the timeline of breakthroughs that leads there, subscribe.
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