At a technology forum in Beijing last week, a Chinese company unveiled a “homegrown” brain-computer interface that allowed a monkey to seemingly control a robotic arm just by thinking about it.
In a video shown at the event, a monkey with tied hands moves the interface to move a robotic arm and grab a strawberry. The system, developed by NeuCyber NeuroTech and the Chinese Institute of Brain Research, involves soft electrode filaments that are implanted into the brain, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Researchers in the US have tested similar systems on paralyzed people to allow them to control robotic arms. However, the demonstration underscores China’s progress in developing its own brain-computer interface technology and competition with the West.
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) collect and analyze brain signals, often to enable direct control of an external device such as a robotic arm, keyboard, or smartphone. In the US, a number of startups, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, are seeking to commercialize the technology.
William Hannas, senior analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), says China is quickly catching up with the US in terms of its BCI technology. “They are very motivated,” he says of the Asian superpower. “They do work that is state-of-the-art, or at least as advanced as anyone else in the world.”
He says China has typically lagged behind the U.S. in invasive BCIs – those implanted into the brain or on its surface – and has instead focused on non-invasive technology worn on the head. However, implantable interfaces being researched for medical applications are quickly catching up.
More concerning, however, is China’s interest in non-invasive BCIs for the general population. Hannas co-authored a report published in March examining Chinese research on BCIs for non-medical purposes.
“China is not shy about this in the slightest,” he says, pointing to the ethical guidelines released by the Communist Party in February 2024 that include cognitive enhancement of healthy people as the goal of Chinese BCI research. A translation of CSET’s guidelines states: “Non-medical purposes such as attention modulation, sleep regulation, memory regulation and exoskeletons for complementary BCI technologies should be researched and developed to some extent, provided there is strict regulation and clear benefit.”
The translated Chinese guidelines go on to say that BCI technology should avoid replacing or weakening human decision-making abilities “before it is proven to exceed human levels and gain societal consensus, and avoid research that undermines autonomy and the like.” A person’s self-confidence is significantly impaired or blurred.”
These non-medical applications are wearable BCIs based on scalp-applied electrodes, also known as electroencephalography or EEG devices. However, electrical signals from the scalp are much more difficult to interpret than those in the brain, and according to the CSET report, there is a major effort in China to use machine learning techniques to improve the analysis of brain signals.
A handful of US companies are also developing wearable BCIs, which arguably fall into the cognitive enhancement category. For example, San Francisco-based Emotiv and Boston-based Neurable are starting to sell EEG headsets designed to improve attention and concentration. The U.S. Department of Defense has also funded research into wearable interfaces that could ultimately allow military personnel to control cyber defense systems or drones.