It sounds like the stuff of science fiction - but a company in Utah has already implanted brain chips in dozens of patients. Blackrock Neurotech, based in Salt Lake City, has the grand ambition of curing physical paralysis, blindness, deafness and depression. The chip -- known as NeuroPort Array -- allow people to control robotic arms and wheelchairs, play video games and even feel sensations. It works by using nearly 100 microneedles that attach to the brain and read electrical signals produced by someone's thoughts. More than three dozen people have so far received it.

Prominent venture capitalist Peter Thiel today announced he has invested in a company that's rivaling Elon Musk's Neuralink Corp. in the emerging brain-machine interface technology space. The co-founder of Palantir Technologies Inc., who was also an early backer of Facebook Inc. and founded PayPal Inc. with Musk back in 1998, is backing a company called Blackrock Neurotech in a $10 million funding round. Christian Angermayer's re.Mind Capital led the round, with Thiel, German entrepreneur Tim Sievers and Sorenson Impact's University Venture Fund II also participating. Blackrock, owned by its parent company Blackrock Microsystems, LLC, was founded in 2008 and is based in Salt Lake City. It has been in the business of neuroscience hardware and software for more than a decade.