DARPA announced that it has formed a program to develop an implantable chip that would allow humans to share information with computers.

The Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program’s innovative technology would connect the information used by the brain’s neurons with technology, resulting in “unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth” between human and machine.

The possibilities for what the chip, which shouldn’t be more than one cubic centimeter in size, could help to accomplish are exciting. A person who has trouble hearing, for example, could be fed additional auditory information to supplement the shortcoming.

 “Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem,” said Phillip Alvelda, project manager for the NESD program, in a statement from DARPA. “Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics.”

Neural interfaces currently used in humans provide information in a convoluted manner because all the data is forced through just 100 channels, each of which take in signals from tens of thousands of neurons at once. Rather than providing signals with clarity, this process leads to the delivery of noisy and imprecise information. DARPA hopes that the NESD program can buck this practice by creating a more efficient system that delivers the information individually to as many as one million neurons in one zone of the brain.

Much of the NESD program’s success will be dependent upon the investment it receives, with those funds helping to launch prototypes, manufacturing services, and intellectual property to its researchers. As the program and its implantable chips continue to advance, investors will be asked to move the resulting technology into a capacity where it can be used for research and commercial applications.

DARPA expects to investment up to $60 million in the NESD program over a four year span.