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.