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Shanghai brain-computer interface company NeuroXess announced a RMB 700 million Series B round on 28 October 2026, co-led by SDIC Juli, Shenzhen Capital Group and Qinzhi Capital and described by 36Kr as dominated overall by state capital. The money will fund the multicentre registration trial of its implant for people with quadriplegia, a factory in Jiangxi and next-generation products.
The US Treasury proposed rules on 22 October 2026 that would prohibit US persons from most new non-public investments in companies that develop or produce brain-computer interfaces and are based in, or owned or controlled from, China, Hong Kong or Macau. The definition covers invasive and non-invasive systems and their software. Brain-computer interfaces sit in the rule's prohibited tier, with no notify-only option, no technical threshold and no small-deal exemption for direct investments. Comments are due by 7 December 2026.
A Chinese developer of implanted brain-computer interfaces is advertising pay of up to RMB 1.5 million a year, about US$223,000, for FPGA experts and PhDs in automatic control, and up to RMB 1 million for neural signal decoding experts and neuroscience PhDs, in public job listings cited by the healthcare trade outlet VCBeat on 12 October 2026. Beijing's official 2026 talent catalogue puts the reference pay range for brain-computer interface roles at RMB 180,000 to 470,000, so the top listing is more than three times its upper end. Headhunter Bailie Talent puts the median company offer for neural signal algorithm engineers in the first half of 2026 at RMB 820,000. Companies say the hardest hires combine neuroscience, engineering and clinical experience, and that hiring has widened from research staff to include manufacturing, quality, regulatory and clinical roles. Chengdu ultrasound developer Gestala has hired a former Neuralink clinical partnerships lead and two former executives of Israel's Nano Retina. Tianjin University and Harbin Institute of Technology were among the first universities approved to offer China's new undergraduate major in brain-computer science and technology, with first students due in the 2026 autumn intake.
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.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology named brain-computer interfaces among six future industries in a State Council Information Office press conference on 26 August 2026, alongside quantum technology, biomanufacturing, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy, embodied intelligence, and 6G. MIIT's draft standards guide, published for comment on 24 August, targets at least 40 BCI standards by 2028 and at least 80 by 2030.
Duan Wanru of Xuanwu Hospital in Beijing said an experienced surgeon can position a Chinese endovascular brain-computer interface in as little as 10 minutes. StairMed unveiled a separate endovascular research program in December 2025 with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, currently in sheep testing. Nankai University completed China's first interventional human BCI in June 2025. Three Chinese endovascular BCI programs are now on the public record.
VCBeat, the Chinese healthcare-investment media outlet, published an on-record investor take on the Chinese brain-computer interface sector on 2 August 2026. Delian Capital partner Jiang Donghui framed the sector as at risk of a bubble cycle before maturity, laid out a four-quadrant investment matrix based on demand and technological advancement, and named Chinese BCI companies across invasive, semi-invasive and non-invasive paths. H1 2026 financing alone accounted for approximately 60 per cent of the sector's thirteen-year total.
In one month, four separate Chinese brain-computer interface programmes each produced a public result. Neuracle wrote the world's first commercial prescription for an invasive BCI at Huashan Hospital on 13 July. NeuroXess ran a two-patient cross-city Chinese chess demonstration between Shanghai and Nanchang. StairMed's investigational trial put three quadriplegic patients into paid remote work. And at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, a paralysed fine-arts graduate from Shenzhen demoed a mind-controlled wheelchair he had built himself with LLM-assisted DIY.
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.
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