China now has a national-level rulebook for how brain-computer interfaces should be built and how their data should be shared. Two recommended national standards took effect on 1 August 2026. The first, GB/T 47023-2026 (信息技术 脑机接口 参考架构), sets a common blueprint for what a BCI system is made of and how its pieces fit together, so a Chinese BCI device from company A and a device from company B can be described in the same technical language. The second, GB/T 47127-2026 (信息技术 脑机接口 多模态数据格式), sets a common file format for the brain-signal data those devices produce, so recordings from one lab, hospital, or company can be compared, replicated, and combined with recordings from another.
Together, the two standards are the reference layer that Chinese hospitals, medical-device manufacturers, and researchers will build compatible BCI products, clinical trials, and datasets on top of. Both were published on 28 January 2026 by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) jointly with the Standardization Administration of China (SAC), verifiable directly on the official National Standards Full-Text Public Database at openstd.samr.gov.cn.
Recommended, not mandatory
Both standards carry the 推荐性 (recommended) designation, listed as 推荐性国家标准 (recommended national standard) in the national standards database. Recommended national standards guide industry practice and set the reference terminology and data conventions that mandatory standards, procurement specifications, and regulatory approvals subsequently reference. They are not compulsory in the sense that a mandatory GB standard would be. In China’s standards-making pattern, foundational recommended national standards typically precede mandatory product-safety and industry standards in the same domain by one to three years.
What each standard covers
The publicly readable metadata on openstd.samr.gov.cn confirms the two standard titles verbatim, their 28 January 2026 publication date, and their 1 August 2026 effective date. The full technical body text of GB standards is not rendered on the free public portal; access requires purchase or a subscribing institution. Chinese-language secondary coverage from Xinhua on 31 July 2026 and 163.com on 1 August 2026 has reported on the internal structure of both standards, including the module breakdown of the reference architecture and the file-naming and metadata conventions of the data-format standard. For that internal structure, consult the Xinhua and 163.com coverage directly; the primary portal does not confirm it.
The companion standard due 1 October 2026
A third BCI-domain national standard, GB/T 47346-2026 (信息技术 脑机接口 视觉诱发电位数据编解码), covers visual evoked potential data encoding and decoding. It was published on 31 March 2026 and takes effect on 1 October 2026, also verifiable on openstd.samr.gov.cn. The three standards together indicate that China’s national-standards subcommittee working on BCI has moved from committee formation to published output covering architecture, data format, and a first application-specific coding standard.
Where this sits in the Chinese BCI regulatory picture
China already has separate NMPA medical-device industry standards work on BCI under the YY/T series, which is a distinct track from national standards and applies to medical-device manufacturers. The 1 August 2026 GB/T standards are China’s first foundational general-purpose national standards on BCI, sitting one layer above the medical-device industry standards.
The standards layer sits inside what Issue 01 of the Dargentic Intelligence Report classified as the Chinese Industrial Builder regulatory posture. PICC’s 12 August BCI underwriting policy and Zhejiang’s 12 August provincial industrial plan, alongside these 1 August foundational standards, fall within a two-week window.
What to watch
Whether SAMR and SAC publish additional BCI standards beyond GB/T 47346-2026 in October. Application-specific data-coding standards for other signal modalities beyond visual evoked potential would confirm the publishing cadence.
A stronger regulatory signal would be NMPA referencing GB/T 47023-2026 or GB/T 47127-2026 in an approval decision, product classification, or clinical-trial guidance document. Recommended national standards gain regulatory weight when they are pulled into mandatory instruments.
Whether the Chinese standards-drafting community pushes similar frameworks into ISO/IEC international BCI standardisation work. China holds active participation in international information-technology standardisation and has been a lead drafter on multiple recent IT standards. The next indicator is a new work item proposal in ISO/IEC JTC 1 with a Chinese sponsoring body.