Regional reportWhere is it happening?
China
The largest publisher of BCI research, and since March 2026 the first country to register an implanted BCI for sale.
Mainland China with the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions.
SlowingConfidence high
Research trajectory, from scholarly works by author country: +26% a year over the latest three years, +36% in the three before. Data as of 8 Oct 2026.
Field snapshot
- 1,120
- scholarly works in 2025
- 30% of the world count; 15% in 2019
- 483
- PubMed papers in 2025
- held as individual records
- 21
- registered studies open now
- 11 with an implanted interface
- 7
- companies profiled
- in 1 country
- $529.3M
- disclosed in recorded rounds
- 6 rounds; a sample
- 2
- regulatory milestones recorded
- kept apart by type
Profiled companies at their headquarters, from the year each was founded.
7 marks on the companies layer in 2026, China. Hover a mark, or use the list.
Marks are records, not decoration. Country marks sit at the centre of the country, not at an institution. Mark area follows the count, so a few large countries dominate; use the region zoom to read the rest. 3 profiled companies have not disclosed a location and are not placed. 36 countries with a small number of works have no position recorded and are not drawn. Clinical counts come from ClinicalTrials.gov and under-count studies outside the United States.
Research momentum
Authors in China published 1,120 scholarly works on brain-computer interfaces in 2025, +28% on the year before. Over the latest three years output grew +26% a year, against +36% in the three years before; the world as a whole grew +23% a year.
| Year | China |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 46 |
| 2011 | 52 |
| 2012 | 60 |
| 2013 | 95 |
| 2014 | 111 |
| 2015 | 113 |
| 2016 | 115 |
| 2017 | 132 |
| 2018 | 175 |
| 2019 | 226 |
| 2020 | 345 |
| 2021 | 421 |
| 2022 | 566 |
| 2023 | 698 |
| 2024 | 873 |
| 2025 | 1,120 |
| 2026 | 1,037 |
| Country | 2025 | Growth a year | Trajectory |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 1,105 | +26% | Slowing |
| Hong Kong | 56 | +22% | Growing steadily |
| Macau | 17 | +34% | Emerging |
Countries with at least five works in 2025. A work with authors in several countries counts once in each.
Companies and initiatives
An implanted intracortical BCI built on ultra-flexible electrodes, now in four registered clinical studies in China.
Core BCI
Maker of NEO, a wireless epidural implant and the first implanted BCI to receive a marketing registration anywhere.
Core BCI
Flexible high-channel-count implants, with early human work on movement and Mandarin speech decoding.
Core BCI
Non-invasive neural interfaces sold as products: bionic limbs and EEG wearables.
Peripheral / neuromotor interface
A Beijing programme developing the Beinao implants with the Chinese Institute for Brain Research.
Core BCI
- Gestala
Chengdu, China · 2026
A newly founded Chinese company pursuing brain interfaces based on ultrasound, without implanted electrodes.
Neural interface
- BCIFlex
Beijing, China · 2022
A Beijing company with an implanted wireless BCI in a registered study for tetraplegia.
Core BCI
Clinical programmes
ClinicalTrials.gov lists 21 open studies with a site in China, 11 of them involving an implanted interface. 8 studies started in 2025.
- 1 Sep 2026WISEShanghai StairMed Technology · NCT07647315Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityRecruiting
- 7 Jul 2026Efficacy and safety of an implantable BCI hand motor function compensation system in tetraplegia after spinal cord injuryNeuroXess Technology (Shanghai) · NCT07720882Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityRecruiting
- 28 Apr 2026Efficacy and safety of an implantable wireless brain-machine interface system in patients with spinal cord injuryShanghai StairMed Technology · NCT07603752Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityRecruiting
- 28 May 2025NEONeuracle Medical Technology (Shanghai) · NCT06990412Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University; Huashan Hospital, Fudan UniversityCompleted
Capital
- Jul 2026$62MGestala Angel+Announced as RMB 420 million; the company gives about US$62 million.
- Mar 2026$22MGestala AngelAnnounced as RMB 150 million. The company gives US$84 million for both rounds and about US$62 million for the second; the dollar figure here is the difference.
- Mar 2026$69MStairMed Strategic financingReported as RMB 500 million. Converted by the Briefing at about 7.2 yuan to the dollar; the source gives no dollar figure.
- 8 Jan 2026$286.3MBrainCo Financing roundAnnounced as CNY 2 billion; the dollar figure is the one the report gives.
- 12 Aug 2025≈ $42MBCIFlex Series AReported as more than RMB 300 million; the dollar figure is the report's.
- 10 Feb 2025$48MStairMed Series BAnnounced as RMB 350 million. Converted by the Briefing at about 7.3 yuan to the dollar, the rate in February 2025; the source gives no dollar figure.
Disclosed funding only: the rounds recorded by the Briefing, not a market total.
Regulatory environment
The National Medical Products Administration registers medical devices. A special review procedure for innovative devices gives closer contact with the regulator and a faster route; admission to it is not an authorisation.
Much early human work runs as investigator-initiated trials inside hospitals. Formal trials are registered mainly in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Several company-sponsored implant studies are also on ClinicalTrials.gov, which is where we read them.
A registration by the regulator and a code in the health-insurance system are separate steps. NEO received both in March 2026; neither sets a price or guarantees reimbursement in a given province.
Development runs on two tracks: venture-funded companies, concentrated in Shanghai and Hangzhou, and state-backed institutes working with large hospitals, as in Beijing.
- 13 Mar 2026NEO registered in ChinaChina NMPA · Medical device registrationAdults aged 18 to 60 with tetraplegia from C2–C6 cervical spinal cord injury, for assisted grasp with a pneumatic glove. A marketing authorisation in China only.
- Aug 2024NEO enters the NMPA innovative-device reviewChina NMPA · Special review procedure for innovative medical devicesA faster review route with closer contact with the regulator. It is not an authorisation.
Institutions in the corpus
Huashan Hospital, Fudan University复旦大学附属华山医院
Shanghai, China
CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology中国科学院脑科学与智能技术卓越创新中心
Shanghai, China
Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University首都医科大学宣武医院
Beijing, China
Beijing Tiantan Hospital北京天坛医院
Beijing, China
Chinese Institute for Brain Research北京脑科学与类脑研究所
Beijing, China
Institutions appear here because a profiled study or paper names them. It is not a ranking, and many active groups are missing.
Latest developments
- 1 Sep 2026StairMed WISE, a study of a Mandarin speech neuroprosthesis in four participants, begins recruiting.Source record
- 26 Aug 2026Gestala Company says it will unveil a first-generation product and a brain foundation model by the end of 2026, before clinical trials.
- 15 Jul 2026BCIFlex A study of the implantable wireless system in tetraplegia begins recruiting at Beijing Tiantan Hospital; 34 participants planned.
- 7 Jul 2026NeuroXess A multi-centre, single-arm study of a fully implanted system for hand function in tetraplegia begins recruiting at Huashan Hospital; 32 participants planned.Source record
- Jul 2026Gestala Angel+ round of RMB 420 million, with HSG, Lens Technology, Sinovation Ventures and C Capital joining, according to the company.
- 11 Jun 2026Neuracle The Shanghai Stock Exchange accepts the company's application to list on the STAR Market.
- 28 Apr 2026StairMed A multi-centre efficacy and safety study in spinal cord injury begins recruiting at Huashan Hospital; 34 participants planned.Source record
- 31 Mar 2026BCIFlex Launches a fully implanted system with stretchable, flexible electrodes and up to 1,024 channels at the Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing.
Open questions and outlook
- Fully implanted, wireless, high channel countWhen do the systems with the best signals lose the connector through the skin?1–2 years · confidence moderate
- Less invasive routes to the brainHow much function can be delivered without opening the dura, or the skull?3–5 years · confidence moderate
- From study device to authorised productWhere, and for what, will implanted BCIs be authorised next?1–2 years · confidence moderate
- Reading and writing the brain with ultrasoundCan an interface without electrodes reach useful bandwidth?Beyond · confidence low
- Neural interfaces as consumer productsDoes the first mass-market neural interface read the brain at all?1–2 years · confidence moderate
Forward-looking judgements by The BCI Briefing, with their reasoning on the Trends page. Uncertain by nature.
What we cannot see here
- This is the region our data under-counts most. ClinicalTrials.gov, which we read, lists 26 BCI studies with a site in China, 12 of them with an implanted interface. A 2026 preprint counts 134 in the Chinese registry, which is not connected yet.
- Company profiles rest partly on Chinese-language reporting, cited with the original title. Titles were machine translated and have not been checked by a Chinese-speaking editor.
- Several organisations we know of are not profiled yet because we have not verified them.
- Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) is not connected. Not yet connected: no public API. Most Chinese BCI studies are registered here and not on ClinicalTrials.gov.
Known to us, not yet verified
- Jialiang Brain Science (佳量脑科学)
- NeuralMatrix
- BCI-Sonics
- Weiling Medical
- OYMotion / Arfysica (傲意科技)
- Zhejiang University BCI programme
- Sichuan brain-science programmes
Leads are pointers for us to check: a study sponsor in a registry, a name in a report. They say nothing yet about what an organisation does, and none is counted anywhere on this site until it has a profile with sources.
Sources cited for this region’s profiles are in English, Chinese.