Regional reportWhere is it happening?
South Korea
A mid-sized publisher of BCI research, with implant programmes only beginning.
AcceleratingConfidence moderate
Research trajectory, from scholarly works by author country: +15% a year over the latest three years, +6% in the three before. Data as of 8 Oct 2026.
Field snapshot
- 126
- scholarly works in 2025
- 3% of the world count; 5% in 2019
- 62
- PubMed papers in 2025
- held as individual records
- 0
- registered studies open now
- 0 with an implanted interface
- 1
- company profiled
- in 1 country
- –
- disclosed in recorded rounds
- 0 rounds; a sample
- 0
- regulatory milestones recorded
- kept apart by type
Profiled companies at their headquarters, from the year each was founded.
1 marks on the companies layer in 2026, South Korea. 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 South Korea published 126 scholarly works on brain-computer interfaces in 2025, +26% on the year before. Over the latest three years output grew +15% a year, against +6% in the three years before; the world as a whole grew +23% a year.
| Year | South Korea |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 8 |
| 2011 | 18 |
| 2012 | 23 |
| 2013 | 52 |
| 2014 | 42 |
| 2015 | 40 |
| 2016 | 56 |
| 2017 | 59 |
| 2018 | 46 |
| 2019 | 69 |
| 2020 | 96 |
| 2021 | 90 |
| 2022 | 82 |
| 2023 | 91 |
| 2024 | 100 |
| 2025 | 126 |
| 2026 | 97 |
Companies and initiatives
South Korea's implanted neural-interface company, with a surface array in a first clinical study.
Neural interface
Clinical programmes
ClinicalTrials.gov lists 0 open studies with a site in South Korea, 0 of them involving an implanted interface. 0 studies started in 2025.
None of the studies we profile in detail has a site here.
Capital
No funding round is recorded for a company headquartered here. Public grants, which fund much of the work in several regions, are not tracked yet.
Regulatory environment
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety authorises device trials and can designate a product as an innovative medical device.
Institutions in the corpus
No institution here is linked to a study or paper we profile.
Institutions appear here because a profiled study or paper names them. It is not a ranking, and many active groups are missing.
Latest developments
- 15 Apr 2026Gbrain Korean trade press reports that the trial in people with epilepsy is under way, that a Series C round has opened and that the company plans a technology-track listing in 2026.
- Dec 2024Gbrain South Korea's MFDS approves a clinical trial of Phin Array, according to the company.
- Jan 2024Gbrain Manufacturing facility receives GMP certification, according to the company.
Open questions and outlook
- Less invasive routes to the brainHow much function can be delivered without opening the dura, or the skull?3–5 years · confidence moderate
- 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
- We profile one company, from its own website and one trade-press report, both read in machine translation. National research programmes are not covered yet.
Known to us, not yet verified
- Ybrain
- Korean national brain-research 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 Korean.