Arbor Neuroscience CEO Philip Sabes tells Shanghai BCI symposium that prediction is the neuromodulation bottleneck
Philip Sabes, a Neuralink co-founder (full-time 2017 to 2020) and now CEO of Arbor Neuroscience, delivered a keynote at the BCI Inno+ Salon International Symposium on Brain-Computer Interface in Shanghai on 14 September 2026. His stated thesis was that the real bottleneck in neuromodulation is prediction: because clinicians cannot reliably predict what will happen after brain stimulation, treatment outcomes are inconsistent. Sabes summarised current practice as 'poke and hope' and positioned Arbor's approach as 'predict and treat'. Arbor Neuroscience is the September 2026 rebrand of Forest Neurotech, a functional-ultrasound-imaging Focused Research Organization founded by Sumner Norman, Tyson Aflalo and Will Biederman inside Convergent Research. The symposium was hosted by the BCI Innovation and Transformation Center at Brain Intelligence World in Shanghai's Minhang District, a Shanghai state-backed partnership between Minhang District, Lingang Group, Shanghai State Investment Corp and Huashan Hospital (a Fudan University teaching hospital), positioned as China's first BCI industry cluster. Sabes made no public statement on US and China BCI competition, export controls, or the recent NSCEB and BIS enforcement actions.