China

A network meta-analysis of 22 randomized study cohorts with 727 participants compared BCI-coupled robotic rehabilitation, robot-assisted therapy alone, motor imagery and conventional rehabilitation for arm weakness after stroke. BCI-coupled robotic rehabilitation ranked highest on upper-limb motor function scores, averaging 6.80 points above conventional rehabilitation, a point estimate above the 5.25-point minimal clinically important difference, although the lower confidence limit fell short of it. Its advantage over robot-assisted therapy alone was only 2.04 points, which the authors judged unlikely to be clinically important.

EEG is easily contaminated by blinks, muscle activity and heartbeats, which can drag down how accurately a brain-computer interface reads intent. Researchers from the School of Automation and the School of Software at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, northwestern China, built Diff-ADN, a single-channel denoiser that first reconstructs the signal according to contamination severity, then applies one diffusion-guided residual correction. It handles ocular, muscular, cardiac and mixed artifacts, reaching mean Pearson correlations with clean EEG of 0.839 to 0.936 at contamination levels from -7 to +2 dB. Across 4 public motor-imagery datasets, removing cardiac artifacts recovered 4.88 to 5.59 percentage points of decoding accuracy, up to 21.90 points in a single case, and a 2-second segment took 12.52 to 17.08 ms on the tested CPU. Better waveform reconstruction did not always translate into equal gains in decoding accuracy.

Dong'e County People's Hospital in eastern China's Shandong province performed a brain-computer interface implant on September 15, 2026, the country's first such procedure at a county-level hospital. The approved system records and decodes brain signals through an epidural implant to control assistive devices. The hospital had previously combined neurology and neurosurgery into a neuroscience center.

BCI hardware and decoding algorithms have advanced quickly, but basic questions such as how much intent can be read from brain signals and how low decoding error can go still lack a systematic theoretical answer. This paper treats a BCI as a closed-loop stochastic process: a user forms an intention, the brain encodes it as neural activity, the device observes the signal, an algorithm decodes it statistically, and feedback returns to the user. Using information theory and statistical decision theory, the authors derive theorems on when intent is decodable, the upper bound of observable information, the lower bound of optimal decoding error, and the convergence of closed-loop learning, plus laws describing constraints from signal-to-noise ratio, class separability and non-stationary co-adaptation. A four-class SSVEP-BCI, in which users gaze at targets flickering at different frequencies, serves as a theoretical case study. The work is theoretical and reports no new experimental data.

Peking University Third Hospital, a top-tier (Grade 3A) general hospital in Beijing whose neurosurgery department is one of its key specialties, is taking part in a clinical trial of a Chinese-developed invasive brain-computer interface (BCI), neurosurgeons Yang Jun and Yu Tao wrote in the 16th issue of China Hospital CEO magazine. The trial enrolls patients with spinal cord injury and relies on a multidisciplinary team (MDT) to restore hand function after implantation. Invasive BCIs read neural signals through electrodes placed inside the skull or on the cortical surface, so surgery and rehabilitation depend on close coordination among neurosurgery, rehabilitation and imaging departments. The disclosure marks one step in Chinese hospitals' clinical validation of domestic systems. Public information has not named the system or disclosed enrollment, follow-up milestones or primary endpoints, and no efficacy or safety data have been released.

Beijing issued China's first provincial-level brain-computer interface (BCI) action plan on January 7, 2025, setting every 2027 and 2030 target in terms of companies and platforms rather than output or revenue. The plan calls for three to five unicorns or would-be unicorns by 2027 and around 100 innovative small and medium-sized firms by 2030. On the payment side, Beijing prices invasive BCI implantation at RMB 7,980 per procedure and covers all three BCI service fees under Category A of basic medical insurance, limited to four hospitals.

Shanghai's science and technology commission issued a BCI action plan on January 10, 2025, pledging to help blind patients partially regain sight by 2030 and to have more than five invasive or semi-invasive products complete medical device type testing by 2027. The city's healthcare security bureau created three BCI service fee items in August 2025 but left prices to hospitals and explicitly excluded them from basic medical insurance payment.

Sichuan's industry department and seven other agencies issued a BCI and human-machine interaction plan on May 12, 2025, targeting 3,000 invasive BCI operations a year by 2030 and the registration of three invasive and five non-invasive products by 2027. The province prices BCI services in five tiers by hospital grade, with implantation ranging from RMB 6,583 to RMB 4,389, all paid out of pocket.

Shandong's health commission and 15 other agencies issued a BCI clinical translation plan on July 7, 2026, following a 2025 industry plan led by the provincial science department. The 14-measure plan sets up a clinical research alliance and a provincial clinical database, cuts review time for Class II devices to 90 working days, and targets more than 30 multicenter validation projects and a RMB 2 billion industry by 2028.

Jiangxi issued BCI support measures on November 26, 2025 that set no numeric targets but called for mutual recognition of clinical research ethics reviews, and its health commission followed on May 26, 2026 with guidance requiring participating sites to finish recognition reviews within 10 working days. Invasive projects for neurological or psychiatric treatment also need provincial expert review within 20 working days.

Jiangsu's industry department and eight other agencies issued a BCI action plan in March 2026 that invites companies in hazardous chemicals, nuclear power, mining and electric power to pilot the technology first. Nearly all its numeric targets, including at least 20 registered medical products, fall in 2030, and a widely cited RMB 6,600 implant price appears only in a 2025 draft, not in the province's final pricing notice.

Tianjin's municipal government issued a 2026-2030 BCI action plan on May 26, 2026 that limits every numeric product target to non-invasive devices, aiming for more than ten in large-scale clinical use by 2030, while invasive products get a single unquantified approval goal. The plan also targets an industry fund cluster of more than RMB 10 billion by 2030.

Guangdong's provincial Party science and technology committee office issued a 2026-2030 BCI plan on June 5, 2026 that calls for 200 BCI hospital wards serving more than 500,000 patients cumulatively by 2030. The plan assigns invasive devices and signal decoding to Shenzhen and non-invasive systems to Guangzhou, and follows provincial BCI prices set nine months earlier, with implantation capped at RMB 6,600.

Anhui issued a 2026-2030 BCI action plan on June 15, 2026 that sets its near-term milestones in 2028 rather than 2027 and frames every target as a minimum, including at least three approved invasive BCI clinical trials. Research leadership goes to the University of Science and Technology of China, with Hefei as the hub, Bengbu handling key components and Wuhu clinical translation.

Zhejiang became the first Chinese province to reimburse a BCI service when it covered non-invasive fitting fees under Category B insurance from September 1, 2025, limited to smart bionic prosthesis fittings. Its 18 industry-academia-research measures, dated July 16, 2026, cut review of qualifying Class II BCI devices to 40 working days and offer research hospitals up to RMB 8 million per project.

Fujian's science department and five other agencies issued a 2026-2030 BCI action plan on August 9, 2026, making the province the 11th in China with a dedicated BCI policy. It plans a cross-strait joint laboratory with Taiwanese research institutions and companies by 2027 and targets 30 innovative companies and a RMB 3 billion industry by 2030.

Hubei became the first Chinese province to publish BCI medical service prices on March 31, 2025, capping invasive implantation at RMB 6,552, and Wuhan hosted China's first BCI operation charged at the government guidance price in November 2025. The province has no dedicated BCI policy document, and its prices carry no insurance payment category.

As of September 14, 2026, 11 of China's 31 provincial-level regions had issued dedicated BCI policy documents, but Hainan, Qinghai and Xinjiang had published BCI medical service prices without any industry plan. Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing and Henan have BCI initiatives but no dedicated documents, and 16 other regions show neither.

Training accurate BCI models depends on large, diverse EEG datasets, but that data is usually locked inside individual hospitals and labs, stored in inconsistent formats and restricted by privacy rules, which makes it hard to share. TrustBCI brings three functions into one platform: turning raw BCI datasets into assets that can be exchanged, using incentives to keep institutions contributing data, and letting users run computations without access to the raw records. The platform demonstrates two workflows, controllable data synthesis, which generates new datasets, and privacy-preserving query, which returns only query results. That suggests BCI models could be trained jointly across institutions without first pooling the data in one place.

Shanghai-based StairMed has taken its wireless implantable brain-computer interface system into human evaluation for people with speech impairments. The prospective, single-arm trial (NCT07647315) actually began on September 1, 2026, is now recruiting, and plans to enroll 4 participants. Subjects will undergo surgical implantation and brain-control training, followed by an expected 12 months of follow-up recording adverse events, serious adverse events and device deficiencies, along with efficacy data on brain-controlled interaction and communication. Primary completion is expected on August 30, 2028, and the study as a whole on December 30, 2028. The registry record does not disclose the implant site, decoding method or detailed eligibility criteria, and no interim results have been posted, so conclusions on safety and efficacy will have to wait for follow-up data.

Electrodes for non-invasive brain-computer interfaces have long traded off conductivity, conformity to the skin and durability. A conductive hydrogel made by in situ directional freezing copolymerization forms vertically aligned ion channels and an interconnected nanoporous network, giving it higher conductivity than conventional hydrogel electrodes. In preliminary P300 and steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) experiments, it recorded signals comparable in quality to conventional wet- and dry-electrode benchmarks, while also offering a tissue-matched compressive modulus, high stretchability, skin adhesion and rapid self-healing. The paper presents these experiments as a feasibility demonstration and reports no data on long-term wear stability, scaled-up fabrication or human clinical trials.

Neuracle Medical Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has registered a cortical electrode, model 1014-35, in the medical device unique identification (UDI) database of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), under registration certificate Guoxiezhuzhun 20263120536. Neuracle's product line spans EEG acquisition equipment and implantable electrodes. The electrode belongs to an implantable EEG electrode kit (cortical electrode, blank electrode, electrode dilator, tunneler, torque wrench, lead fixation clip, fixation screws and electrode protective sleeve) that holds its own registration certificate and is also a component of an implantable BCI hand motor function compensation system. That system comprises a BCI implant, the electrode kit, an EEG signal transceiver, a pneumatic glove, a single-use surgical toolkit, and three software packages for EEG decoding, medical testing and clinical management.

Ten native Mandarin speakers read aloud six single-vowel rhymes while optically pumped magnetometer magnetoencephalography (OPM-MEG) and EEG recorded the same task. In the 150-500 ms window after stimulus onset, OPM-MEG decoded significantly more accurately than EEG with all five classifiers tested. The best-performing combination, common spatial pattern features with a linear support vector machine, reached a mean accuracy of 60.3% for OPM-MEG versus 56.7% for EEG. That suggests speech BCIs that need no implanted electrodes and do not restrict head movement may have a clearer signal path than EEG.

A team at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, has built a hybrid brain-computer interface (BCI) that combines surface electromyography (sEMG) with steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP), encoding 480 targets with 120 flicker frequencies and four hand gestures. In online experiments it achieved a mean classification accuracy of 84.55 ± 7.23% and a mean information transfer rate (ITR), a key measure of practical BCI performance, of 260.07 ± 30.41 bits/min. Its command set matches the largest target counts in existing systems, and the authors place its performance among the top, offering a technical reference for large-command-set BCIs. The work appeared in Cognitive Neurodynamics on September 7, 2026.

Researchers at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and collaborating institutions have developed a neural electrode interface that, they report, significantly extended electrode operational lifetime and improved signal fidelity over six months of in vivo implantation. The material, a benzyloxycarbonyl-substituted poly(ornithine-alt-glycine) coating abbreviated OGCbz, resists biofouling and immunogenic rejection without degrading electrical performance, targeting what the authors call the critical obstacle to electrodes that combine long-term recording with tunable biofunctional control: an immune-mediated foreign body response in which glial scar encapsulates implants like cement. Substituting the Cbz group with other functional moieties preserves those antifouling and biocompatibility properties while adding new ones, and as a proof of concept the peptide sequence IKVAV and the antibody cetuximab gave the interface neuron affinity and tumor cell proliferation inhibition respectively; the six-month result came from the IKVAV-functionalized version.

Researchers at Guangzhou Maritime University, Guangdong University of Technology and Guangzhou University in southern China combined a genetic algorithm with Bayesian linear discriminant analysis to pick a fixed, strongly generalizable three-channel subset from a conventional eight-channel P300 BCI, avoiding per-user recalibration. In offline and online virtual reality experiments with 48 healthy subjects, the three-channel system matched the eight-channel system on accuracy and information transfer rate, while equipment preparation fell from 30 minutes to 3, a 90% cut. NASA-TLX scores showed significantly lower mental and physical workload. The study was published in Biomimetics on September 1, 2026.