Thursday, October 29, 2026
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Policy & Regulation

US Treasury proposes barring new US private investment in Chinese brain-computer interface companies

The US Treasury proposed rules on 22 October 2026 that would prohibit US persons from most new non-public investments in companies that develop or produce brain-computer interfaces and are based in, or owned or controlled from, China, Hong Kong or Macau. The definition covers invasive and non-invasive systems and their software. Brain-computer interfaces sit in the rule's prohibited tier, with no notify-only option, no technical threshold and no small-deal exemption for direct investments. Comments are due by 7 December 2026.

Oct 24, 2026 · 10 min read

Market Moves

NeuroXess raises RMB 700 million for its brain implant

Shanghai brain-computer interface company NeuroXess announced a RMB 700 million Series B round on 28 October 2026, co-led by SDIC Juli, Shenzhen Capital Group and Qinzhi Capital and described by 36Kr as dominated overall by state capital. The money will fund the multicentre registration trial of its implant for people with quadriplegia, a factory in Jiangxi and next-generation products.

Oct 29 · 4 min read

Industry News

Neuralink says an ALS patient reached 75 words a minute with its speech implant

Neuralink said on 28 October 2026 that one participant with ALS in its VOICE speech trial reached 75 words per minute with a 5.8 per cent word error rate on a 125,000-word vocabulary in their first week. The figures come from a company post and have not been peer-reviewed. They are faster than any published result on a vocabulary that size, and less accurate than the best published results from UC Davis.

Oct 29 · 4 min read

Industry News

Chinese ultrasound maker eSonic signs a cooperation deal with researchers from Mickael Tanter's Paris lab

Beijing-based eSonic launched what it calls the eSonic brain-computer interface platform on 22 October 2026 and signed a Sino-French strategic cooperation with researchers from Mickael Tanter's team, whose Paris lab introduced functional ultrasound imaging of the brain in 2011. The company's only public account is its own press release. No French institution is named as a party, and eSonic cites no published data showing functional ultrasound through an intact adult human skull.

Oct 28 · 5 min read

Industry News

NeuroDoctrine flies three drones with a brain-signal headband in Manchester

Defence start-up NeuroDoctrine, led by neuroscientist Zied Tayeb, flew three small commercial drones with a non-invasive headband reading brain signals over the visual cortex at its Manchester launch in late September 2026. Calibration takes about six hours per user. The company, whose advisers include a former US Special Operations Command science and technology director and a former commander of NATO Allied Land Command, is raising money and wants to sell its system to defence contractors. It has published no test data behind its performance claims.

Oct 28 · 5 min read

Industry News

China approves its first home-grown brainstem hearing implant for children

China's National Medical Products Administration approved Zhejiang Nurotron's WH-01A auditory brainstem implant on 19 October 2026. Developed with Wu Hao's team at Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, it is approved for children aged 2 to under 6 who lost their hearing before learning to speak and cannot use a cochlear implant because of a severely malformed inner ear or a missing cochlear nerve. In the US, the only approved auditory brainstem implant is limited to patients aged 12 and over with neurofibromatosis type 2.

Oct 26 · 6 min read

Policy & Regulation

A Chinese expert led the new international blueprint for brain-computer interfaces

ISO and IEC published ISO/IEC 27572:2026, a voluntary international reference architecture for brain-computer interfaces, on 3 September 2026. China's market regulator said in mid-October that a Chinese expert led the project, with experts from countries including Italy, South Korea, the UK, India, the US, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Australia and Germany. The subcommittee behind it, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 43, has China's national standards body as its secretariat and a Chinese chair, and its scope is under review.

Oct 23 · 6 min read

Industry News

Emotiv puts brain-computer interface apps in the browser

Emotiv's new site emotiv.dev offers seven browser-based brain-computer interface apps for its EEG headsets and keeps their brain data on the user's computer. Using the apps with a real headset requires consent to EmotivIQ, Emotiv's cloud AI service. Under terms updated in August and September, that consent lets Emotiv train its Large Brain Model on pseudonymised brain data from its own apps and cloud, and license the trained model to partners.

Oct 23 · 5 min read

Market Moves

Founders Fund and the OpenAI Startup Fund co-lead Coherence Neuro's US$45 million round

Coherence Neuro, which is developing a brain implant to monitor and treat brain tumours, announced a US$45 million round, which it calls its Series A, on 21 October 2026, co-led by Founders Fund and the OpenAI Startup Fund. The money is for its first long-term human trial in glioblastoma, an application for FDA Breakthrough Device designation and preclinical work in pancreatic cancer. Chief executive Ben Woodington says OpenAI will not have access to any brain or health data the company generates.

Oct 22 · 5 min read