by “I want to eat” appeared in Chinese characters on a computer in a public hospital in centrally peking. The words were formed from the thought of a 67-year-old woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (as), also known as Lou Gehrig’s illness that cannot speak.
The demonstration, which was recorded by Beijing Radio and TV channel on video in March, was part of a clinical study in which five patients with a coin size called Beinio-1 were implanted by a wireless so-called brain computer interface (BCI)-a technology that is conducted by scientists in the USA, but in which experts say that China quickly obtains.
Luo Minmin, director of the Chinese Institute for Brain Research (Cibr) and the chief scientist behind the study, said that there was a “very strong” need for BCI technology and said that they were “overwhelmed” by inquiries of potential patients.
“The patients said this felt as great as if they could gain or regain control of (their) muscles,” he told a rare interview in his laboratory in May in May, which is a car hour from the Peking Xuanwu hospital where the attempt took place.
Luo said the technology showed “high accuracy” in decoding signals from the patient’s brain and translated the signals in text speeches or machine movements. His team plans to accelerate human studies by implanting chips in 50 to 100 other patients next year.
“We hope that we can move this process faster,” he said. “If it has proven to be safe and effective, it can be used clinically worldwide.”
Luo Minmin. Poznan for a picture during an interview with CNN at the Chinese Institute for Brain Research Lab in Beijing, China on May 28, 2025. – CNN
From May, Beinao-1, a total of five patients, says the same number as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, its implants. Another US company synchronized, which includes investors Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, carried out with 10 patients, six in the USA and four in Australia.
Maximilian Riesenhuber, professor of neurosciences at Georgetown University, which was not involved in the Beinio attempts, told CNN that China is making progress despite the employee that started as the USA.
“China has definitely shown the ability not only to catch up, but also to be competitive and to actually start now, also to drive the field in some areas,” he said. “There are an exciting number of research activities in both countries because they have recognized the potential in BCI.”
According to Precurse Research, a market research company, the market for brain technology was a value of around 2.6 billion US dollars last year and is expected to increase to $ 12.4 billion by 2034. For China and the USA, however, this technology is about a lot of money.
Chinese guide Xi Jinping has long aimed to transform his country into a science and an economic power plant. In March he wrote in the state media that the tech industry of the “front” and the “main slaughter field” of global competition had become. His ambitions have triggered concern in the USA, which led to a continued Tech war, especially in the semiconductor industry.
Another approach
Cibr was founded together by the city administration of Beijing and several local universities in 2018, about two years after Elon Musk founded Neuralink near San Francisco.
In 2023, CIBS incubated a private company called Neucyber Neurotech to concentrate on brain technology products such as BEAO-1. Luo, who is also the chief scientist of the startup, gave CNN rare access to the institute in May.
For years, he said, that as a patient who was in the 1960s could not be expressed.
“She is awake, she knows what she wants, but she couldn’t say,” said the scientist, who received his doctorate in neurosciences at the University of Pennsylvania and spent almost a decade in the United States. “After the implantation, she can now talk about the system pretty precisely.”
All BCI researchers must take into account the balance between risk and effectiveness.
Riensenhuber said that most American companies use the more invasive method to place chips in the Dura Mater, an external tissue layer that covers and protects the brain and spinal cord to record a better signal. However, these methods require more risky operations.
“It is interesting to see that Neucyber is apparently able to get enough information from the Dura to enable the decoding of certain words,” he said.
The test on the ALS patient who started in March marked the third attempt by the Beninao-1 chip in humans. These attempts made up what the developers described in a press release as “the world’s first semi-invasive implantation of wireless BCI in the human brain”. From May two further attempts for a total of five were carried out.
The chip of legao-1 is about the size of a coin. – CNN
Clear ambition
In the midst of increasing geopolitical tensions, comparisons between US and Chinese technology cards are common. The Brain Computer Interface Technology started for the first time in the 1970s in the United States.
Decades later, the Obama government started its “brain initiative” in 2013 and has since invested more than 3 billion US dollars to finance over a thousand neuroscientist technology projects, according to the National Institute of Health.
Synchronous based in New York was the first company to start human tests in July 2021. Three years later, a new BCI system, which was developed at UC Davis Health, translated the brain signals of one as a patient in language and achieved an accuracy of 97% -the most precise system of this kind, said the university in a statement. In the same year, Musk company completed his first human attempt, so that the participant was able to control a computer mouse with a brain implant.
China only started in Brain Tech in the 1990s, but it progresses quickly. In 2014, Chinese scientists presented the idea of a national project on brain technology to meet similar efforts in the USA and Europe, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology. Two years later, Brain Tech was mentioned in the country’s five -year plan, which describes China’s national priorities and goals.
“Brain science is new in China,” said Lily Lin, former research assistant in one of the best research units in China from 2021 to 2023.
Last year, the government published its first ethical guidelines for research in this area. At the local level, the urban governments in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities also support companies for brain technology from research and clinical studies to commercialization.
Brain models exhibited in the laboratory of Cibr in Beijing, China on May 28, 2025. – CNN
Giant Huber and other researchers from Georgetown University published 2024 studies on the China BCI development and explained that the efforts of Chinese researchers were “comparable in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
“We found that China’s non-invasive BCI research is comparable to those of other scientifically advanced nations and is working on overcoming obstacles to greater loyalty, throughput and the broader use,” says the issue letter. “China’s invasive BCI research, which historically behind its non-invasive efforts, has taken up the pace and approaches the global standards of sophistication.”
Luo, who has worked in both countries, says that the USA is the “frontlunner” in both invasive and non-invasive brain technology. However, the comparison of legao-1 and neuralink is like “apples and oranges”, he added.
The two systems differ not only in the implant location, but also in the type of brain signals recorded and in the method of data transmission. The Chinese chip records a wider range of brain areas, with a lower precision for each neuron.
“All in all, I don’t think these two products have a competitive or exclusive relationship,” added Luo. “The jury is no longer there and we still don’t know which route will better benefit the patient.”
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