China’s tech milestone nobody is talking about: Brain chips

If you want to understand where Chinese technology is heading over the next decade, you need to look at where the capital is flowing right now. In the first quarter of 2026, the Hong Kong stock market experienced a massive surge in initial public offerings. In just 79 days, the market raised nearly HKD 110 billion ($14 billion) across 40 new listings. This represents a 489% increase year-on-year and the strongest first-quarter performance since 2021. But the headline number is less important than the composition of the queue. Of those 40 listings, information technology and hard-tech sectors accounted for 56% of all companies and a staggering 67% of total funds raised. Despite being deeply loss-making, AI model companies Zhipu AI and MiniMax listed and saw their valuations surge by nearly 600% and 200%, respectively, in 2026. Meanwhile, more than 430 companies are still in the active processing queue, with major players like Moonshot AI and Unitree Robotics preparing for their own massive raises. What looks like a market rally is actually Beijing’s 15th Five-Year Plan flowing through capital markets in real time. China is using Hong Kong as an offshore funding platform for priority technologies — deliberately, at a moment when U.S. export controls are narrowing other options. The companies getting funded this quarter are building the infrastructure that global businesses will operate on in 2028 and beyond. And while the world has been watching AI models and humanoid robots, one of the most profound breakthroughs of this new capital-intensive era just quietly received commercial approval. China approves world’s first commercial brain chip In March 2026, China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) officially approved the registration application for Neural Electronic Opportunity (NEO). Developed by Neuracle Medical Technology, NEO is an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) system designed to compensate for hand motor function. This marks the world’s first implantable BCI Class III medical device to receive market approval. While Western media has been captivated by Elon Musk’s Neuralink and its clinical trials, China just became the first country to allow a brain-computer interface to reach the public market. The device translates the thoughts of a person with severe paralysis into the movements of an assistive robotic hand, specifically a pneumatic glove. The clinical trial, led by Fudan University Huashan Hospital (which hosts China’s National Center for Neurological Disorders), enrolled 32 patients across 11 top-tier medical institutions. The results were remarkable: the improvement rate for hand grasping function reached 100% across the cohort. One patient, a 40-year-old man who had been paralyzed from the neck down for six years following a car accident, had experienced four years of rehabilitation stagnancy. After the BCI implantation and intensive training, he gradually rebuilt the neural connections between his brain and hands. Eventually, he was able to remove the BCI device entirely and, supporting his right hand with his left, write his own name without any device assistance. As the lead researcher noted, this proves that the human brain’s neural circuits still exist after severe injury, and with BCI implantation and training, those circuits can be reformed. The three tracks of Chinese BCI The approval of NEO is not an isolated event. It is the result of a highly coordinated, multi-track approach to brain-computer interfaces that mirrors China’s broader strategy for hard-tech dominance. While Western companies have largely focused on highly invasive, high-bandwidth implants (like Neuralink), the Chinese ecosystem is advancing simultaneously across three distinct tracks: The invasive track (medical) This is where NEO sits. It requires surgical implantation and is strictly regulated as a Class III medical device. The focus here is entirely on restoring lost function for patients with severe neurological damage or paralysis. The speed of the NMPA’s approval process demonstrates a regulatory willingness to accelerate life-changing technologies to market once safety and efficacy are proven in multi-center trials. The semi-invasive track (clinical) Sitting between full brain surgery and external wearables, semi-invasive systems are also advancing rapidly. The Beinao-1 system, for example, has already been successfully implanted in seven patients and is currently advancing through clinical trials. These systems aim to offer a balance between the high signal quality of invasive implants and the lower surgical risk of external devices. The non-invasive track (consumer and industrial) This is where the commercial scale truly lies. Companies like BrainCo, founded by a researcher from the Harvard BCI Lab, are already in mass production with non-invasive BCI technology. They are deploying focus-monitoring headbands in educational settings, developing advanced prosthetics that read muscle signals, and creating emotional monitoring systems for high-stress industrial environments. The “bus line” strategy There is a fundamental difference in how Chinese and Western tech ecosystems approach commercialization, and the BCI sector illustrates it perfectly. One could say that while Neuralink is building the spaceship, China has rolled out the bus line, and people are already riding it. The Chinese approach to hard tech — whether it is EVs, humanoid robotics, or brain-computer interfaces — is to optimize for deployment. The goal is not necessarily to build the most futuristic, sci-fi-esque capability in the lab; it is to pick a clear use case, reduce risks, secure regulatory approval, and get the product into the market. Once the product is in the market, the iteration cycle begins. The data gathered from real-world use feeds back into the development loop, driving down costs and improving reliability at a scale that lab-bound competitors cannot match. We saw this playbook execute in the electric vehicle sector, where companies like BYD and CATL iterated their way to global dominance. We are seeing it now in humanoid robotics, where Unitree is already producing one robot every 30 minutes on an automated line. And now, we are seeing it in neurotechnology. What this means for global brands For global executives, the Q1 IPO wave and the NEO approval are two sides of the same coin. The capital flooding into Hong Kong is not chasing consumer internet apps or food delivery platforms. It is funding the foundational layers of the next economy: AI models, semiconductors, robotics, and biotechnology. The companies that are commanding premium valuations today are the ones that will define the technological infrastructure of 2028. The correlation between model quality and company survival is weakening. The correlation between capital access and survival is strengthening. Indeed, the Chinese tech ecosystem is moving from the digital realm into the physical and biological realms. The approval of the world’s first commercial brain chip is a clear signal that this transition is accelerating. The companies that are currently flush with IPO capital are growth-hungry and actively seeking enterprise partnerships to prove their commercial viability. Engaging with these hard-tech pioneers now — whether it is integrating an AI agent into your customer journey, exploring collaborative robotics for your supply chain, or understanding how non-invasive BCI might impact consumer research — offers a window of leverage that will close once these technologies become the industry standard. China is no longer just a market to sell into. It is the laboratory where the next decade of human-machine interaction is being commercialized first. Ashley Dudarenok is a Chinese entrepreneur, author, and media personality, recognized by Thinkers50 as a “guru on fast‑evolving trends in China.” She is the founder of ChoZan, a China‑focused research and digital transformation consultancy. Ashley and her team help multinationals learn from China through tailored China innovation tours, research, and boardroom briefings. She is a keynote speaker, author of three bestselling books, runs a popular newsletter, and shares her insights with a B2B community of over 500,000 China watchers across LinkedIn and YouTube. Her latest endeavor is The Hidden Switch, a show spotlighting billion‑dollar founders from emerging countries who are reshaping the world.

China’s tech milestone nobody is talking about: Brain chips

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China’s tech milestone nobody is talking about: Brain chips

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