BCIwiki (bciwiki.com) — On May 26, 2026, the General Office of the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government in northern China issued an action plan to promote brain-computer interface innovation for 2026 to 2030. Every numeric product target in the plan is limited to non-invasive devices.
The document is numbered Jinzhengban Fa [2026] No. 8, was drafted by the municipal science and technology bureau, and sets out 20 key tasks in five areas.
By 2027 Tianjin aims to establish two to three national innovation platforms, bring more than five non-invasive products into clinical use, attract or cultivate 50 innovative companies and draft one to two national standards. By 2030 it aims for more than ten non-invasive products in large-scale clinical use, approval of an invasive product, one to two listed companies and three to five leading firms, and an industry fund cluster of more than RMB 10 billion.
Invasive technology appears once in the targets, without a number and without saying whether the product must be local. The barrier for invasive BCIs is clinical, requiring flagship neurosurgery centers and teams able to handle high-risk operations, where Beijing and Shanghai are stronger. The barrier for non-invasive BCIs is hardware engineering and algorithms, where Tianjin has a base in electronics and precision instruments and hosts the Haihe Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interaction.
Platform building accounts for five of the 20 tasks, the largest share. One names two institutions, asking the Haihe laboratory and the Tianjin Medical Device Quality Supervision and Inspection Center to cooperate on testing and evaluation. BCI products must pass type testing before registration, and testing bodies often lack methods and criteria for them, so having developers and testers build methods together addresses that bottleneck.
Under product promotion, the plan lists accelerating hospital adoption as a separate task, since registered devices still face hospital technology admission, procurement, staff training and insurance. Among the four application scenarios, consumer use comes first; consumer products need no device registration and are the fastest outlet for non-invasive technology.
Its funding clauses are more specific than most. The plan uses government investment funds to draw social capital into more venture funds, gradually forming a BCI industry fund cluster worth more than RMB 10 billion by 2030. It also encourages BCI companies to issue sci-tech innovation bonds and supports qualified companies in initial public offerings.
For scale, Zhejiang’s main BCI companies had combined revenue of more than RMB 2 billion in 2025. Sci-tech innovation bonds are hard for early-stage firms to use, so their inclusion suggests Tianjin also has mature companies with revenue and cash flow in view.
Tianjin’s government work report proposed bidding for a national BCI technology innovation center, echoed by the 2027 platform target. A national technology innovation center is usually established once per field, and its location largely determines a city’s national standing in that field. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are also qualified contenders; Tianjin’s opening lies in non-invasive technology as a distinct focus.
Standards are another lever. An industry standard on terminology for medical devices using BCI technology, approved by the National Medical Products Administration, took effect on January 1, 2026, and in August 2026 the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology opened a draft guide to a national BCI industry standards system for comment, proposing more than 40 standards by 2028. Drafting national standards costs people and time and brings influence over technical rules.
Company density is the weak point. In the target of attracting or cultivating 50 innovative companies, attracting comes first, reflecting reliance on recruitment in a sector with few mature companies available to relocate.
No Tianjin BCI service price items have been found, leaving the city with national item codes only. Non-invasive fitting is the cheapest of the three national items, and Tianjin’s product focus on consumer and industrial markets lies outside insurance anyway.
Two questions will decide the plan: where the national technology innovation center goes, and how Tianjin defines clinical use, since starting clinical studies is a low bar while routine use after registration is a high one.