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Tag: Industrial-Builder-posture

23 articles

Market Moves

Neuracle has sold 13 brain implants at a listed RMB 475,000 each since July

Neuracle Technology (Shanghai) (博睿康), maker of China's first approved invasive brain-computer interface, has sold 13 NEO-ONE SCI implant systems and implanted 8 since its first commercial sale in July 2026, with more than 70 more in firm and intended orders. The system is listed at RMB 475,000 per set on procurement platforms in 27 provinces and is not covered by any basic medical insurance catalogue. Neuracle made the figures public on 29 September 2026 in its answers to the Shanghai Stock Exchange's first round of questions on its STAR Market listing application, 110 days after the application was accepted. First-half 2026 revenue was RMB 46.3 million, almost all from its non-invasive business and none from the implant, with a net loss of RMB 65.5 million. No listing committee meeting has been scheduled. None of the best-known Western developers of implanted BCIs, Neuralink, Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, Paradromics and Blackrock Neurotech, is publicly listed.

Oct 1

Policy & Regulation

Chinese Academy of Sciences names brain-computer interfaces a priority field in its 2026 to 2030 plan

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China's top state research body, announced on 28 September 2026 that it had released its 15th Five-Year development plan covering 2026 to 2030. The plan lists brain-computer interfaces among its 'important priority fields' (重要优先领域), alongside integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, quantum science and technology, life sciences and biotechnology, and controlled nuclear fusion. CAS will organise research around a '3+4+X' regional layout with Shanghai as one of three strategic highlands, and will explore forming field-based research consortia, mission-based task forces and platform-based facility clusters across its institutes. CAS already runs its own invasive BCI programme: a system developed at its Shanghai Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) was implanted in its first trial participant at Huashan Hospital in March 2025, and StairMed, founded by CEBSIT researcher Zhao Zhengtuo, entered the National Medical Products Administration's innovative device green channel in November 2025 with a market target of around 2028. CAS was one of the seven co-signatories of the 2025 BCI industry implementation opinions. The plan lands six days after Premier Li Qiang inspected BCI products in Shanghai and called future industries a blue ocean for advanced manufacturing. No BCI budget, programme names or milestones have been made public.

Sep 30

Market Moves

Precision Neuroscience closes oversubscribed $250 million Series D co-led by Pershing Square and the Ackman Oxman Institute

New York-headquartered invasive brain-computer interface operator Precision Neuroscience closed a $250 million oversubscribed Series D on Thursday 24 September 2026. Three co-leads: Pershing Square (Bill Ackman's investment firm), the Ackman Oxman Institute (the philanthropic BCI-and-neurotechnology venture Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman announced in August 2026 after their daughter Lucy's brain hemorrhage), and an undisclosed leading life-sciences investment fund. Additional participation from Duquesne Family Office (Stanley Druckenmiller), B Capital, ARK Invest, Invus, Mubadala Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, Korea Investment Partners, Hitachi Ventures, JSL Health Capital, and others. Total capital raised since 2021 founding is now $430 million. Proceeds will expand the clinical programme, advance Layer 7 through the next stages of FDA review, and build the infrastructure required for commercialisation. Precision was founded in 2021 by Ben Rapoport (Neuralink founding-team scientist, left Neuralink in 2018, Mount Sinai neurosurgeon), Michael Mager (CEO), Demetrios Papageorgiou, and Mark Hettick. Layer 7 is a thin-film 4,096-electrode microelectrode array that conforms to the cortical surface, non-penetrating, safely removable. Layer 7 holds an FDA 510(k) clearance authorising commercial use for recording, monitoring, and stimulating on the cortical surface for implantation durations of up to thirty days (granted April 2025), and has been used across 100-plus patient procedures at 18 medical institutions including the University of Pennsylvania Perelman, University of Chicago Medicine, Mount Sinai, and WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. Precision runs a wholly-owned MEMS manufacturing facility in Texas and holds a Medtronic commercial partnership. BrainGate founder and 2026 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering laureate John Donoghue joined as Scientific Advisor on 23 July 2026. The Series D closes two days after Chinese non-invasive BCI operator BCI-Sonics closed a HongShan and Yunqi Partners-led RMB 200 million Pre-A in Shanghai on 22 September, the same day Premier Li Qiang inspected brain-computer interface products in Shanghai. Two top-tier private-capital signals into invasive and non-invasive brain-computer interface operators, one on each side of the Pacific, inside a single week.

Sep 25

Market Moves

BCI-Sonics closes RMB 200 million Pre-A led by HongShan and Yunqi Partners

Shanghai-headquartered non-invasive brain-computer interface company BCI-Sonics closed a RMB 200 million (~USD 28 million) Pre-A financing round on Tuesday 22 September 2026, co-led by HongShan (the post-2023 rebrand of Sequoia China under Neil Shen) and Yunqi Partners. New participants included Proxima Capital, Oriza Holdings, Shanghai's Xuhui Sci-Tech Innovation Investment, and Moral Stone Investment. Existing investors Matrix Partners China (MPCi) and Delian Capital followed on. Xunguang Capital served as exclusive financial advisor. Total capital raised since 2025 founding is roughly RMB 300 million. The company was founded by Dr. Li Xin, formerly Head of GE Global Research Center China and a joint PhD graduate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fraunhofer IGD in Germany. BCI-Sonics' modality is low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS/LIFU) for brain stimulation, paired with a multimodal reading system combining functional ultrasound (fUS), EEG, fMRI and PET, and passive cavitation detection for safety monitoring. Three product lines are in development: a Research toolchain for neuroscience labs (unveiled at CNS 2026 in September), a Clinical portfolio targeting pain, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, addiction, sleep, and ultrasound-mediated blood-brain-barrier opening for CNS drug delivery, and a Technology/Consumer wearable BCI terminal for sleep, focus and emotion. Closed-loop ultrasound BCI clinical trials are scheduled to enter Q1 2027. The Pre-A closed the same day Premier Li Qiang inspected BCI products in Shanghai and directed the establishment of future-industry investment-growth and risk-sharing mechanisms and 'patient capital' (耐心资本) expansion.

Sep 24

Policy & Regulation

Chinese Premier Li Qiang publicly names brain-computer interfaces a 'blue ocean' on a Shanghai inspection tour

China's Premier Li Qiang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, spent Tuesday 22 September 2026 on a Shanghai inspection tour of two innovation venues. At the second, the Shanghai Future Kick-off Community (上海未来启点社区) sci-tech innovation and incubation platform for future industries, he inspected technology products in two named categories: brain-computer interfaces and quantum computing. He then framed future industries as 'a potential blue ocean for advanced manufacturing' (先进制造业发展的潜在蓝海). Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining and State Council Secretary-General Wu Zhenglong accompanied the tour. The remarks operationalise General Secretary Xi Jinping's prior directive on advanced manufacturing and the spirit of the National Conference on Advanced Manufacturing. The visit lands Li Qiang's on-record inspection of BCI products above the March 2026 Government Work Report first-mention, above the 15th Five-Year Plan naming of BCI as a future industry (CPC 4th Plenum, 20 to 23 October 2025), and above the seven-ministry BCI Implementation Opinions of July 2025. The venue itself is not disclosed to have featured named Chinese BCI operators. Shanghai's Minhang District already hosts the country's first BCI industry cluster at Brain Intelligence World, which by mid-2026 housed 61 BCI companies, roughly 30 percent of the national BCI operator field.

Sep 23

Policy & Regulation

China issues a medical-device standard for AI processing of EEG data in brain-computer interfaces

China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has issued what state news agency Xinhua characterises as the world's first medical-device standard covering AI-processed electroencephalogram (EEG) data in brain-computer interfaces, announced on 14 September 2026. The standard was drafted by the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC) under an expedited procedure and becomes effective on 1 September 2027. Scope: quality requirements and evaluation methods for EEG datasets used by AI algorithms in BCI medical devices, covering collection, processing, annotation, storage, and access across R&D, production, and quality-control stages. Named NMPA and NIFDC officials: Yuan Peng (Deputy Director, NMPA Department of Medical Device Registration), Li Shu (Deputy Director, NIFDC medical device institute), Zheng Jia (Deputy Director, NIFDC Institute for Medical Device Standardization). This is the third BCI-related medical-device standard issued by China in twelve months, following 2025 standards on BCI terminology and on test methods for implantable closed-loop neural stimulators. The US FDA has no BCI-specific AI/EEG data-quality standard. The EU has no BCI-specific standard, only horizontal AI Act coverage of medical BCI as high-risk. On the narrow AI-EEG-BCI slice, China's world-first framing holds up.

Sep 17

Market Moves

Three Chinese BCI operators are in the IPO queue at once

Three Chinese brain-computer interface operators are simultaneously moving through IPO processes on two exchanges. Neuracle Medical Technology (博睿康技术（上海）股份有限公司) is the leader: its Shanghai STAR Market prospectus was accepted 11 June 2026 with a planned RMB 2.5 billion (~US$345M) raise. Neuracle received China's first commercial invasive BCI approval from NMPA in March 2026 (NEO-ONE SCI for spinal cord injury). BrainCo (强脑科技) filed a confidential Hong Kong Exchange application in January 2026 (joint sponsors CICC and UBS), with the September 2026 pricing calendar showing no imminent hearing. Arfysica Innovation (术理创新), led by female founder Wang Wei, registered STAR Market pre-IPO tutoring in early September 2026 with Huatai United Securities, entering the pipeline three months behind Neuracle at the earliest stage. Neuracle's disclosed prospectus reveals RMB 108 million 2025 revenue, all from non-invasive EEG systems, with the NEO invasive product still at zero commercial revenue and 32 patients implanted by end-2025.

Sep 14

Market Moves

NMPA clears Tiankai Suishi's non-invasive EEG cap for cognitive-impairment diagnosis

China's National Medical Products Administration approved a non-invasive EEG-cap diagnostic device made by Tianjin-based Tiankai Suishi Intelligent Technology on 19 August 2026 for assessing cognitive impairment. The device sits in the diagnostic tier of China's growing brain-computer interface pipeline: Class II non-invasive rather than the Class III invasive category cleared by Neuracle in March 2026. Tiankai Suishi is a Tianjin University-linked startup founded 2023, led by Gu Bin, with a depression-diagnosis product also filed with NMPA. The approval extends China's Industrial Builder posture from a single invasive-BCI flagship into diagnostic-device territory anchored on the country's ageing-population indications: Alzheimer's, schizophrenia-linked cognitive dysfunction, and depression.

Sep 3

Research

KIST reports first BCI chip that reads electrical and optical brain signals on one probe

Researchers at KIST's Brain Science Institute have published a peer-reviewed BCI probe in Advanced Science that combines 416 electrodes and 832 photodiodes across 13 hair-thin silicon shanks, enabling simultaneous electrical and optical brain-signal readout on a single monolithic CMOS chip. KIST claims it as a world-first at this level of density and integration. Preclinical work in live mice; not yet in primate or human. Funded by Korea's K-Moonshot Project.

Aug 8

Industry News

StairMed's penetrating BCI trial at Huashan reaches 18 cumulative implants

On 20 July 2026, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, StairMed disclosed that its cortex-penetrating invasive BCI clinical trial at Huashan Hospital has now reached 18 cumulative implants since March 2025. The Shanghai firm co-founded by Zhao Zhengtuo and Xue Li at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Center for Excellence in Brain Science demonstrated a patient three months post-op controlling a wheelchair by thought and hitting 6.19 bits per second on a cursor task, alongside a live journalist test at 4.9 bits per second with a finger.

Jul 20

Market Moves

BrainCo unveils a brain-to-robot developer platform at WAIC 2026 in Shanghai

On Friday 17 July 2026, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, BrainCo debuted its Brain-Controlled Robot AI Platform, a graphical developer toolkit that pairs its non-invasive EEG headset with third-party humanoid, robotic-arm, and quadruped robots from Unitree, Realman, and Deep Robotics. Nyx He, partner and senior vice president, framed the launch as the next chapter of human-machine collaboration. Live demonstrations at the booth showed a person in an EEG headband directing a robotic arm to pick up a cup and an apple without buttons, voice, or muscle movement.

Jul 18

Industry News

China performs first commercial Neuracle NEO implant

On Monday 13 July 2026, neurosurgeons at Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University performed the first commercial implantation of Neuracle's NEO brain-computer interface in a male patient with tetraplegia from a decade-old cervical spinal cord injury. The device is coin-sized, epidural, battery-free, and drives a pneumatic glove for hand grasping. Neuracle NEO is the world's first commercial invasive brain-computer interface implant for motor restoration in paralysis, following NMPA Class III market approval on 13 March 2026.

Jul 16

Policy & Regulation

Beijing Tiantan Hospital seeds Xizang's first plateau BCI centre at Lhasa People's Hospital

Xinhua reported on 9 July 2026 that Xizang (Tibet Autonomous Region)'s first plateau brain-computer interface clinical application centre was inaugurated at Lhasa People's Hospital. A medical assistance team from Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, introduced the non-invasive EEG-based BCI technology, which drives exoskeleton and robotic-arm actuators for motor rehabilitation. The centre sits within a six-year Tiantan-Lhasa department-support partnership dating to 2020, and targets cerebral haemorrhage, cerebral ischemia, TBI, spinal cord injury, and peripheral nerve injury indications.

Jul 10

Market Moves

CNBC profiles BrainCo as the Hangzhou non-invasive BCI leader runs up to its Hong Kong IPO

CNBC published a video interview by China reporter Elaine Yu with Nyx He, Partner and Senior Vice President at BrainCo, on 10 July 2026. The interview lands six months after BrainCo confidentially filed for a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing on 12 January 2026 with CICC and UBS Group AG as arrangers, and six months after the company closed a ¥2 billion (approximately US$286 million) financing round co-led by IDG Capital and Walden International on 8 January 2026. BrainCo is one of Hangzhou's Six Little Dragons alongside DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, Game Science, DEEP Robotics, and Manycore Tech.

Jul 10

Policy & Regulation

Beijing names Changfazhan its first BCI incubation platform under the Future Industry programme

Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology announced on 1 July 2026, with English release on 7 July, that the Changfazhan Brain Science and Brain-Computer Interface Incubation Platform in Changping district has been designated as one of seven newly recognised Future Industry Incubation Platforms, the first BCI-specific platform under that specific programme. Shanghai municipal science commission director Luo Dajin separately claimed on 6 July that Shanghai hosted nearly 60 per cent of China's BCI financing events, 40 per cent of the disclosed funding amount, and one-third of the country's BCI companies in the first half of 2026.

Jul 7

Policy & Regulation

China's NMPA locks BCI device classification: every implant is Class III, one narrow Class II lane

China's National Medical Products Administration issued Announcement No. 24 (2026) on 29 June 2026, releasing final Guiding Principles for the Classification and Definition of Brain-Computer Interface Medical Device Products plus a companion Generic Naming Guidelines. Every invasive BCI is Class III. Non-invasive BCIs are Class III by default. Non-invasive stroke-motor rehabilitation devices are Class II only if they do not incorporate artificial intelligence.

Jul 4

Market Moves

Gestala closes US$62 million Angel+ round for ultrasound BCI, opens Shanghai NeuroAI headquarters

Gestala (格式塔科技), a Chinese non-invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface company led by founder and CEO Phoenix Peng, announced on 3 July 2026 that it had closed a US$62 million Angel+ financing round and formally opened a Shanghai NeuroAI headquarters. The company is the third Chinese ultrasound BCI startup to disclose funding within ten days, alongside Sisen Technology (1 July 2026) and Huachao Shenkong.

Jul 3

Market Moves

China and South Korea have shipped three BCI industrial-policy launches in eight weeks

Between 1 May and 19 June 2026, three operational state-backed brain-computer interface moves landed across China and South Korea. China State Council Order No. 818 took effect on 1 May 2026, opening a parallel commercial pathway for advanced biomedical technologies that names BCI explicitly. Tianjin formally inaugurated a dedicated BCI industrial cluster with 100 million yuan in annual funding on 29 May 2026. South Korea launched its first national BCI industry association in Seoul on 16 June 2026, anchored to the K-Moonshot strategic R&D mission. Three dated, named, primary-sourced moves in eight weeks across two jurisdictions.

Jun 21

Market Moves

Korea's BCI industry forms a national association in Seoul, anchored to the K-Moonshot state programme

The Korean BCI Association (한국BCI협회) held its inaugural general meeting on Tuesday 16 June 2026 at Centerfield in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Seoul National University Hospital President Baek Nam-jong was elected inaugural chair. Standing vice president is Kim Yong-jin, who chairs ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 41 (Internet of Things and Digital Twin). Founding members include Ybrain, Dynamic Solution, Vibatrobotics, Ceragem on the industry side; Seoul National University Hospital, Severance Hospital and Korea University Anam Hospital on the medical side; and KAIST, DGIST, UNIST, Korea University, Catholic Kwandong University, Yonsei University and Hanyang University on the academic side. The association states it will actively support the K-Moonshot strategic R&D programme that launched in March 2026 with 12 missions, including a BCI mission led by Korea University Professor Cho Il-joo.

Jun 19