Five patients in China now carry the Beinao-1, a coin-sized wireless brain-computer interface that sits on top of the dura mater rather than penetrating brain tissue. The milestone, reported by the South China Morning Post and Technology.org, matches Neuralink’s implant count while pursuing a fundamentally different surgical approach.
The Beinao-1 was developed by the Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders and its spinoff NeuCyber NeuroTech, the same group whose rotating CEO recently acknowledged a three-year technology gap with Neuralink. But where that admission focused on raw electrode density and bandwidth, the Beinao-1’s results suggest the company is betting that a less invasive path to the brain could prove more practical at scale.
The device is classified as semi-invasive: it requires a craniotomy to place the chip on the dura mater, the tough outer membrane that protects the brain, but does not push electrodes into the cortex itself. That architecture accepts lower signal resolution in exchange for reduced surgical risk and, the team argues, a shorter path to routine clinical deployment.
The first three patients were implanted by April 2025 and included a person with paraplegia from spinal cord injury, a hemiplegic stroke survivor, and a patient with ALS-related speech disorders. All three recovered well after surgery, according to Chinese state media reports. Two additional patients have since been implanted, bringing the total to five.
The ALS patient’s results have drawn the most attention. Through post-surgical training, the patient learned to decode the output of nearly 100 common Chinese words, producing over 60 commonly used words and phrases on screen. In one demonstration, the patient generated the phrase “get me a doctor” using thought-driven character selection. Other patients have been shown controlling robotic arms to pour water and have reported improvements in hand grasping ability.
The team plans to enrol approximately ten more patients in the near term, with a target of 50 formal clinical trial participants following regulatory approval in 2026. Hubei Province has already published pricing guidelines for invasive BCI procedures, setting the rate at 6,552 yuan (roughly $900) per implantation, with removal priced at 3,139 yuan.
The comparison to Neuralink is inevitable but the two systems occupy different technical territory. Neuralink’s N1 implant uses 1,024 ultra-thin polymer threads that penetrate several millimetres into the cortex, capturing individual neuron firing patterns. The Beinao-1’s epidural placement records aggregate signals from the brain’s surface, which limits single-neuron resolution but avoids the tissue damage and chronic inflammation associated with penetrating electrodes. By January 2026, Neuralink had enrolled 21 participants in its US clinical trials.
China’s broader BCI push provides the backdrop. In March, the National Medical Products Administration granted commercial clearance to Neuracle Medical Technology’s NEO system, a separate epidural implant that became the first invasive BCI anywhere in the world authorised for routine clinical sale. That approval, which Inside BCI covered on March 13, was based on 36 clinical procedures including 32 multi-centre trials. The Beinao-1 is not yet commercially approved but its patient numbers and decoding capabilities position it as one of the more advanced investigational systems in the Chinese pipeline.
The pace is notable. A year ago, no Chinese company had implanted a human with an invasive BCI. Today, two distinct systems have reached patients, one has commercial clearance, and provincial governments are already setting reimbursement rates.