Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s Neuralink competitor is expecting its first brain chip this year

Starfish Neuroscience, a brain-computer interface startup founded by Valve's Gabe Newell, plans to release its first brain chip in late 2025, designed for both recording brain activity and stimulation for disease therapy. The chip aims to be smaller, less invasive, and require less power (1.1mW) than competitors like Neuralink, while enabling simultaneous access to multiple brain regions; Starfish envisions potential partnerships for wireless power and the final implant, focusing on addressing neurological disorders through circuit-level dysfunction.

Analysis

Starfish Neuroscience, a startup founded by Valve's Gabe Newell, is entering the brain-computer interface (BCI) arena with plans to produce its first custom electrophysiology chip, designed for both recording brain activity and neural stimulation, by late 2025. This chip aims to differentiate itself from competitors like Neuralink by being physically smaller (2 x 4mm), significantly less power-intensive (1.1 mW total power consumption, enabling wireless power transmission instead of a battery), and designed for simultaneous access to multiple brain regions through potentially multiple smaller implants. Key specifications include 32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75kHz, and fabrication using TSMC's 55nm process. In contrast, Neuralink's N1 implant features 1,024 electrodes and reportedly consumed around 6mW as of 2019. Starfish's strategy targets circuit-level dysfunctions in neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, leveraging the ability to interact with several brain areas concurrently. The company is also exploring a precision hyperthermia device for tumor destruction and a robotically guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system. While the venture originates from a figure prominent in the gaming industry, and Valve has explored BCIs for gaming, Starfish's immediate focus, as indicated by its blog post and website, is on therapeutic applications and seeking collaborators for aspects like wireless power and final implant systems, reflecting the speculative and early-stage nature of this technological pursuit.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Investors monitoring the neurotechnology and advanced medical device sectors should track Starfish Neuroscience's development, particularly its differentiated low-power, multi-region BCI approach, with its first chip anticipated in late 2025.
• The venture represents a long-term, high-risk, potentially high-reward opportunity characteristic of the BCI field; crucial milestones to observe will be Starfish's success in securing partnerships for development and eventual clinical validation of its technology.
• For Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM), fabricating Starfish's chip on its 55nm process is a minor engagement, reinforcing its role in emerging technologies but unlikely to materially impact TSM's near-term financials given the early stage and scale of the startup.