China’s BCI start-ups, seen as potential rivals to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, are gaining momentum as regulatory support and fresh capital fuel growth.
Shares of BCI companies rose on mainland Chinese exchanges on Friday, with Shenzhen-listed Inkon Life Technology surging more than 10 per cent.
The approval awarded to Neuracle, a private firm founded in 2011, marked the first time globally that an invasive BCI could be sold and used on patients as a commercial product, according to China’s National Medical Products Administration.
The company’s founder, Xu Honglai, earned a PhD in biomedical engineering from Tsinghua University.
Last month, Neuracle, which develops and sells scientific research equipment, launched its listing process on the Star Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange by signing an initial public offering tutoring agreement with Citic Securities.
The newly approved implantable BCI hand motor function system was described by the company as a coin-sized wireless device placed on the brain’s outer surface without penetrating tissue, designed to read patients’ neural signals and translate them into hand movements.
StairMed said it was the first company in the implantable BCI field to receive investments from both Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, and Tencent Holdings.
Alibaba and Tencent “have deep strengths in multimodal large models, computing infrastructure, smart hardware and ecosystem deployment, which can be deeply integrated with StairMed’s globally leading brain-computer interface hardware and clinical translation experience”, founder Li Xue said in a statement.
The start-up, founded in 2021 by Li and fellow scientist Zhao Zhengtuo, develops tiny brain implants capable of reading and transmitting neural signals at high speed, as well as ultra-thin flexible electrodes and the robotic tools required to insert them. Zhao completed his postdoctoral research at Rice University after studying at the University of Texas at Austin.
The company plans to launch a “large-scale” clinical trial in mid-2026, aiming to enrol and implant about 40 patients by the end of the year. “By late 2026, StairMed’s total number of clinical implants is expected to approach, or even surpass, the 21 cases reported in trials by Elon Musk’s Neuralink,” the statement said.
It completed three BCI clinical trial implants last year.
Other investors in the latest round of funding included state-backed SDIC Fund Management and Shanghai Guotou Leading Fund, as well as Shanghai-based private equity firm Yuanlai Capital, US investment firm OrbiMed, Oriza Seed, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures and Beijing-based venture capital firm Source Code Capital.
China has vowed to develop “two or three” global players in the sector by 2030 to compete with Neuralink. In a document released last year, the government set a goal of achieving breakthroughs in key BCI technologies by 2027, with plans including establishing an advanced technology system and an industrial framework.
News – Curated by Amanda Scott, Alias Group Creative
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