China has approved the world’s first invasive brain-computer chip—here’s what’s next

['One day last October, sitting in the courtyard of his house in China’s Henan province, Dong Hui decided to see if he could hold a pen to write. Dong, 39, had sustained spinal cord injuries in a car accident six years earlier that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Slowly but determinedly, he wrote his name, “Thank you,” and then the date.

This was the result of an 11-month-long rehabilitation enabled by an implant in his brain. Before that process, Dong could move his arms slightly but wasn’t able to use his fingers.', '“I couldn’t believe I was able to write again. I was so excited I even missed a stroke in my name,” he told MIT Technology Review on a video call.

In November 2024, Dong became one of the first people in China to be given an invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) through brain surgery. He had signed up for a clinical trial with the device’s developer one month after seeing on TV how a BCI had apparently enabled another paralyzed Chinese man to hold his granddaughter.', 'This March, the implant Dong uses became the first invasive BCI product in the world to be approved for use beyond clinical trials. It’s now available to some patients with paralysis in their limbs due to spinal cord injuries.

The device, called NEO, was developed by Neuracle Technology, a Shanghai-based startup, together with researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing. During a procedure that took just over an hour and a half, the device’s sensors, which collect Dong’s brain signals, were placed on his dura mater, the tough outer layer of tissue that covers and protects the brain.', 'The approval of NEO is a significant milestone for the global BCI industry, says Wang Shouyan, a neuroscientist at Fudan University in Shanghai who was not involved in research or trialing for NEO. Even though research and development on BCIs has taken place for several decades, most of it happened in the lab.

The news means that BCIs are now ready for large-scale manufacturing and clinical use in China, Wang says. For Dong, however, it means something much more personal. “Now, it will be able to help not only me, but also thousands and thousands of other patients suffering from spinal cord injuries in China who are tortured by despair each day,” he says of NEO.

“It will bring them hope and change their lives.”', 'China’s strong support for its BCI industry also means that NEO was put on an expedited regulatory pathway; in comparison, the approval process of the US Food and Drug Administration can take several years, says Avinash Singh, a BCI researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. NEO’s approval is also a result of the country’s latest five-year plan, which lists BCI as one of six key industries important to China’s future tech competitiveness, alongside quantum technology, humanoid robots, and others.', 'Looking forward, China’s BCI industry is expected to speed up its growth over the next five years thanks to strong government support. More BCIs are also in the pipeline for domestic approval in the country, including Beinao-1, developed by the Chinese Institute for Brain Research in Beijing and its affiliated startup, NeuCyber NeuroTech.