Capital Influx and Technological Race: China's Brain-Computer Interface Industry Reaches a New Inflection Point

The Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily, May 24th, by reporter Xu HongIn March this year, the "Implantable Brain-Computer Interface Hand Movement Function Compensation System" (NEO system), independently developed by Neuracle Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., was approved for marketing by the National Medical Products Administration, obtaining the world's first registration certificate for invasive brain-computer interface medical devices.

Despite being approved, the NEO system still needs to deliver the "final push" before it can truly benefit patients on a large scale.

According to the reporter from "The Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily",Neuracle is currently pushing forward with all the preparatory work before clinical application.Recently, the "NEO National Clinical Special Training Course" has been officially launched, and Huashan, Xuanwu, and Huaxi Hospitals have been established as the first batch of national training bases in China, fully addressing the last kilometer from "approval" to "standardized application."

As epitomized by the NEO system, brain-computer interfaces have become the hottest focal point of capital and technological resonance.

At the "2026 Future Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Top 100 Conference" recently hosted by Vbdata, this trend was fully demonstrated. Brain-computer interface was not only the sole core track running through the three-day conference, but also, with more products entering the clinical stage, the entire industry is experiencing unprecedented prosperity.

▌Capital Rush: Special Funds Intensive Moves

From the top-level guidance of the national team, to the active response of local state-owned assets, and to the deep involvement of market-oriented institutions,The密集落地 of various special funds has become the most significant industry风向标 for brain-computer interfaces.

In this race, Heying Brain-Computer Fund is a name that cannot be ignored. As the first industrial fund in China focusing on brain-computer interface, it was established in May 2024. It not only completed the preemptive layout first, but also built a set of "ecological" strategies.

"As early as the end of 2022, we began looking for the next breakout point," recalled Zhang Yutao, a partner at Neuracle Brain-Machine Fund. The team scoured China's "14th Five-Year Plan" at the time, attempting to find another hard-tech track that aligned with the characteristics of 'new quality productivity,' beyond biomedicine and synthetic biology.

"At that time, we established three evaluation criteria, namelyThe State Has Expectations, Technology Can Be Achieved, and Business Is Sustainable"Zhang Yutao said that they eventually focused on brain science and brain-computer interface.

According to Zhang Yutao, the fund has currently reached more than 270 brain-computer interface companies in China, covering all technical pathways such as invasive, semi-invasive, and non-invasive approaches. It spans diverse scenarios including medical, consumer, and industrial applications, and geographically completes an extensive layout from Beijing-Tianjin to the Pearl River Delta and then to Sichuan-Chongqing. "This full-dimensional layout allows us to go beyond the role of mere investors, becoming deeply integrated facilitators and enablers within the industry chain."

Whether the track is hot or not, the companies on the front line feel it the most. Vice President of Arfysica Innovation, Jin Hui, frankly stated: "This year is a historic year for witnessing the development of the brain-computer industry."

As an old-established company that entered the industry as early as 2016, Jin Hui recalled that in the early days, the industry was so quiet that "it was hard to gather enough people even for a major conference." Nowadays, however, "when hosting a brain-computer interface event, it’s common to have over a hundred companies participating." The influx of capital and favorable policies have also attracted a large number of talents. "In the past, we had to compete with AI large model companies and the semiconductor industry to recruit talent, which was extremely difficult. Now, an increasing number of high-end talents are willing to give up high salaries and actively join the brain-computer interface industry."

This wave of enthusiasm is backed by a solid industrial foundation. Jin Hui mentioned,This year, China has not only issued the first medical device registration certificate for invasive brain-computer interface, but also non-invasive technology has accumulated nearly 100,000 cases of clinical data.

"As a major manufacturing country, China has an extremely complete industrial chain, and once key technologies mature, the speed of industrialization will be very fast," emphasized Jin Hui. Moreover, the vast clinical resources of tertiary hospitals in China provide valuable data for technological iteration. Therefore, the current environment is highly favorable for the development of brain-computer interfaces, and it will certainly support faster and better product and technology implementation.

Amidst the Hype, There Are Also Cold Thoughts. While brain-computer interfaces hold great promise, they are still in the "early stages of early stages" at present.Many projects are still at the stage of "I can do it," but far from proving "I really can achieve it."." An investor pointed out.

Huang He, founder and CEO of Suzhou Ruiyi Xulian, has a deep understanding of this. Established in 2024, this startup’s founding team had long been deeply involved in the field of DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation) neuromodulation. Transitioning from the well-established DBS to brain-computer interfaces, Huang He values the latter's potential as the "next-generation neuromodulation" upgrade, but he frankly admits that this path is extremely challenging.

"From the perspective of clinical application, many brain-computer interface products currently address issues that are more 'icing on the cake,' which for a...New Industry"It's far from enough." Huang He believes that for brain-computer interfaces to truly gain a foothold,Must be able to provide "timely and crucial" value, providing irreplaceable solutions in scenarios where existing methods fall short.

Cathay Pacific HealthcareHe Wenbin, Co-Chief Analyst of Pharmaceutical Industry at the Securities Policy and Industry Research Institute, also pointed out,The commercialization of brain-computer interfaces is still in the early validation stage overall.Although some consumer-grade products have generated certain revenues, in the hardcore medical field, large-scale commercialization is still a distance away. "Even for Neuracle, a leading company, to reach an income level of 500 million or 1 billion yuan, it will take quite some time despite the boost from medical insurance."

Faced with the situation that most projects are still in the laboratory or early clinical stages, how should investors screen out truly valuable targets? In this regard, Ding Feng, Vice President of Innovation Works, gave a core evaluation criterion: the comprehensive ability of the team.

"In the existing competitive environment, whether a team can efficiently connect with the capital market and integrate industry resources is sometimes no less important than purely technical indicators," said Ding Feng.

He further took the example of GLP-1 receptor agonists giving rise to a trillion-dollar market value company,Point out that the most imaginative logic of brain-computer interface lies in its "dimensionality reduction" potential.In other words, once the technology achieves a single-point breakthrough in the serious medical field, it has the opportunity to expand its application boundaries to broader consumer healthcare scenarios, thereby serving a larger user base.

▌Tackling the "Everest": The Global Race for Visual Reconstruction

The rise of brain-computer interfaces this year is also reflected in the diversified breakthroughs in technical routes, especially the emergence of new paths such as ultrasound brain-computer interfaces. On the clinical application side,Invasive brain-computer interfaces have made significant progress not only in motor control and language decoding but also started to delve into other areas such as visual reconstruction and emotional regulation.。

Among them, visual reconstruction (i.e., helping the blind "regain sight") is considered another core direction where brain-computer interfaces have significant application potential. Data shows that the global blind population has reached 40 million, but existing artificial retinal prosthesis solutions are only suitable for patients with certain retinal diseases, which not only have limited indications but also possess numerous limitations.

The demand for restoring vision among blind patients is very urgent.

"The greatest desire of blind patients is to restore their visual abilities, allowing them to reintegrate into normal social life," said Ma Zhiyong, Director of the Jiangsu Province Disabled Persons' Assistive Devices Service Center. Patients do not demand to see every detail as a person with normal vision would; for them, simply being able to perceive outlines, distinguish directions, and improve self-care abilities—even the slightest technological breakthrough—represents an invaluable necessity.

However,Visual reconstruction is also hailed as the "Mount Everest" of the brain-computer interface industry, with extremely high technical difficulty and a long road to commercialization.In contrast, there are few companies in China that have entered the field to tackle the challenge. Among them, Neuracle is the "technical controller." In December 2025, the company announced the world's first successful functional interaction validation for visual reconstruction of "complex graphics + multiple colors."

When talking about why enterprises should rise to the challenge, Zhang Li, co-founder and chief scientist of Neuracle, pointed out, "In the field of brain-computer interfaces, reading signals (Input) and writing signals (Output) are two completely different technical routes, just like a person's two legs; missing one makes it incomplete.”

Therefore, when the vast majority of companies in China are focused on "reading signals" (such as motion control, language decoding), Neuracle leverages its own expertise and strengths to tackle the more challenging "writing signals."

How difficult is visual reconstruction? Regarding this, Zhang Li frankly stated that among all application directions of brain-computer interfaces, visual reconstruction is the only one that requires hundreds or even thousands of channels, presenting an extremely high threshold.

"Many investor friends asked me, visual reconstruction is so early-stage and so difficult, the global scientific community has only achieved a level of 0 to 0.5, how do you have the confidence to move forward?" Chen Shuoqi, Senior Investment Manager of Delian Bojian Brain Science Fund, talked about the initial considerations.

"This is exactly the key point where we value Neuracle. The development of science relies on data accumulation and clinical advancement, and Neuracle is at the forefront globally in these aspects. Although visual reconstruction seems difficult, as long as the data foundation is solid, once the algorithms and hardware catch up later, the future path will be long. We hope Neuracle can represent Chinese enterprises and lead globally in this direction," he said.

Wei Chenxue, Senior Investment Manager of Zhongke Chuangxing, further elevated it to the concept of endgame thinking. She believes that,Visual reconstruction is like a "ticket" to the future."It's like the anime 'Sword Art Online' depicts, the ultimate ideal is to connect consciousness to the virtual world, and visual reconstruction is the cornerstone of this imagination."

She further explained, just asRobotTactile sensors are required for precise actions. If brain-computer interfaces are to achieve high degrees of freedom in motor function reconstruction, they must also possess sensory feedback capabilities: "Not only do they need to decode brain commands to control external devices, but the system must also sense the texture and weight of objects to form a closed loop."

“Starting from vision and ultimately leading to the reconstruction of perception, whether connecting to the virtual world or empowering embodied intelligence, this is the most imaginative endgame for brain-computer interfaces.".' Wei Chenxue concluded."

It is reported that Ming Vision Brain-Computer Interface plans to launch the first IIT (Investigator-Initiated Trial) for blind patients this year, and patient recruitment and other work are currently underway. The company aims to enter the formal clinical stage around 2028 and strives to bring the product to market by 2030.

Another company deeply engaged in visual reconstruction, Nuanchi迦, is adopting a dual-path strategy of advancing both retinal and visual cortex pathways simultaneously. The development of the visual cortex product is progressing faster and is expected to initiate registration clinical trials in 2028.

Looking back at the development process, Yang Jiawei, founder of Nuanchi Technology, frankly stated, "Every step has been extremely difficult." Taking the visual cortex product as an example, although the company launched a prototype as early as 2017, due to the need for continuous iteration and refinement of the technology, it took a full seven years to complete type inspection, finally achieving this milestone in 2024.

"The type inspection alone took a year and a half." Yang Jiawei explained that since there were no precedents in China, all the testing items and standards had to be explored and established from scratch by the team and the inspection center, resulting in an extremely lengthy process.Brain-computer interface, as the peak of human technology, is destined to be a long-distance race that requires patience.。