At a technology forum in Beijing last week, a Chinese company unveiled an “homegrown” brain-computer interface that allows monkeys to control robotic arms just by thinking.
In a video shown at the event, a monkey with its hands tied uses an interface to move a robotic arm to grab a strawberry. The system was developed by NeuCyber NeuroTech and the China Brain Research Institute and uses a soft electrode filament implanted in the brain, according to state news media Xinhua News Agency.
U.S. researchers have experimented with a similar system to allow paralyzed people to control a robotic arm, but the latest demonstration marks the start of China developing its own brain-computer interface technology and joining forces with Western countries. It highlighted that they were competing.
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) collect and analyze brain signals and often enable direct control of external devices such as robotic arms, keyboards, and smartphones. In the United States, executives at startups including Elon Musk’s Neuralink are aiming to commercialize the technology.
William Hannas, principal analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies (CSET), said China is rapidly catching up with the United States in BCI technology. “They have strong motivation,” he says of the Asian superpower. “They’re doing cutting-edge work, or at least more advanced work than anyone else in the world.”
He said China typically lags behind the U.S. in invasive BCIs, or BCIs that are implanted in or on the surface of the brain, choosing instead to focus on non-invasive head-worn technology. It is said that there is. However, they are rapidly catching up with implantable interfaces being considered for medical applications.
More concerning, however, is China’s interest in non-invasive BCI for the general population. Hannas co-authored a report published in March examining Chinese research on BCIs for non-medical purposes.
“China is not at all shy about this,” he said, referring to ethical guidelines released by the Communist Party in February 2024 that include improved cognitive function in healthy people as a goal of China’s BCI research. He said he was. A translation of the guidelines by CSET states: “Non-medical purposes, such as exoskeletons for attention regulation, sleep regulation, memory regulation, and enhanced BCI technology, will also be considered and developed to some extent, as long as they are strictly regulated and have clear benefits.” “should be done,” it says.
The guidelines, translated into Chinese, go on to say that BCI technology should avoid displacing or weakening human decision-making capacity “before transcending the human level and gaining social consensus” and that human autonomy should be avoided. It states that research that significantly interferes with or obscures gender and self-identification should be avoided.
These non-medical applications refer to wearable BCIs, also known as electroencephalography or EEG devices, which rely on electrodes placed on the scalp. However, according to the CSET report, electrical signals from the scalp are much more difficult to interpret than those in the brain, and significant efforts are being made in China to use machine learning techniques to improve the analysis of brain signals. It is said that
A small number of US companies are also developing wearable BCIs that likely fall into the cognitive enhancement category. For example, Emotiv of San Francisco and Neurable of Boston have begun selling EEG headsets aimed at improving attention and concentration. The U.S. Department of Defense is also funding research into wearable interfaces that could eventually allow military personnel to control cyber defense systems and drones.
