At the dawn of 2026, Elon Musk unveiled a fresh surprise to the global capital market.

On New Year's Day, he took to social media to announce that Neuralink's brain-computer interface device would commence mass production within the year, accompanied by the promotion of streamlined, highly automated surgical solutions. This proclamation effectively hit the 'fast-forward' button on the commercialization journey of brain-computer interfaces.

The market quickly caught the wave of enthusiasm, with Neuralink's profile soaring. U.S. stock Brain Regeneration Technology surged by 60% in just two days. On the opening day of the A-share market across the ocean, the brain-computer interface sector experienced a staggering 13.7% surge, with dozens of related stocks, including Sanbo Brain Hospital, BeiYiKang, Mehao Medical, and Biotest Biotechnology, hitting their daily limits. Billions of yuan worth of capital poured in.

Suddenly, the brain-computer interface, a concept long explored in laboratories for half a century, found itself elevated to a pedestal by both capital and media. Yet, amidst this frenzy, questions linger: Will 2026 mark the breakthrough year for the brain-computer interface industry, or is it just another overhyped tech bubble?

| Rising Market Value: Is the Sci-Fi Dream Within Reach? |

The brain-computer interface boom is not merely hype; it's a resonance triggered by top-tier technological breakthroughs, national strategic support, and robust market expectations.

Elon Musk and his Neuralink are undoubtedly the catalysts behind this 'party.' He not only announced the commercial milestone of mass production but also described a 'assembly-line' fully automated minimally invasive surgery, hinting at disruptive technological innovation.

Through the development of flexible electrodes and robotic surgery exploration, Neuralink has transformed the originally high-risk, hours-long craniotomy into a roughly 30-minute procedure, eliminating the need to cut the dura mater during surgery. This significantly reduces surgical trauma, infection risks, and costs, fundamentally addressing the core dilemma of invasive brain-computer interface commercialization.

If Neuralink's technological breakthrough is the 'spark,' then China's solid industrial foundation and clear national will provide ample 'fuel' for this fire to spread domestically. While the domestic stock market's excitement is partly influenced by overseas industry chain reactions, deeper confidence stems from China's own strategic layout in the brain-computer interface field.

In 2024, China already identified brain-computer interfaces as a key area for future industrial development. By 2025, seven departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly issued the 'Implementation Opinions on Promoting Innovative Development of the Brain-Computer Interface Industry,' with Beijing, Shanghai, and other regions subsequently introducing specialized action plans and billion-dollar industrial funds.

This top-down push provides fertile ground for technological R&D and commercialization, ensuring that research achievements transcend academic papers and genuinely transform ordinary lives.

The NEO system, developed through collaboration between Professor Hongbo's team at Tsinghua University School of Medicine and BrainCo, is a representative semi-invasive technology. By placing flexible electrodes above the dura mater without direct penetration into fragile brain tissue, it minimizes damage while enabling effective brain-machine training.

After implanting this system, Dong Hui, a patient paralyzed from the neck down for over a decade due to a car accident, can now control a computer with his mind and even grasp a water bottle with a robotic arm, despite having lost sensation in his hands. His case proves that brain-computer interfaces are not just functional 'replacements' but potential 'repairers' of neural pathways.

China has also made remarkable progress in invasive brain-computer interfaces requiring dural penetration.

Since its inception, Shanghai's BrainTiger Technology has positioned itself as a Neuralink competitor. In clinical trials, patients using its devices can control various mechanical products with their minds. In its documentary 'Restarting Life,' company founder Tao Hu and brain-machine trial participants even successfully competed in a gaming PK under different operational modes.

Meanwhile, BrainTiger achieved a key breakthrough in language decoding, becoming the first globally to realize high-precision real-time Mandarin decoding. Patients with damaged brain language areas achieved a 71.5% accuracy rate in decoding common Mandarin syllables through the brain-machine system post-surgery.

As a renowned domestic brain specialty hospital group, Sanbo Brain Hospital has also leveraged its strong neurosurgical capabilities to participate deeply in multiple invasive brain-computer interface clinical studies.

Recently, its team successfully helped a patient with brainstem stroke achieve mind-controlled cursor typing through implanted electrodes, enabling real-time text communication with family. According to Sanbo Brain Hospital data, the patient's mind-typing accuracy stabilized above 95% within three months post-surgery, peaking at 20 Chinese characters per minute.

From Musk's commercialization ambitions to China's national strategic layout, from core technological iterations to paralyzed patients regaining mobility, a series of phenomena clearly indicate that the brain-computer interface industrialization narrative now rests on solid technological and policy foundations. Behind the soaring market values lies strong market anticipation that this sci-fi concept of 'brain-machine integration' is about to materialize.

| Capital Frenzy Cannot Mask Development Challenges |

However, amidst the spotlight and surge in stock prices, the brain-computer interface industry faces significant challenges that cannot be ignored.

The invasive/semi-invasive approaches represented by Neuralink and BrainTiger form the core of current technological narratives and capital market fervor. Yet these are not consumer electronics from sci-fi concepts but extremely stringent high-end medical devices whose R&D must adhere to strict medical regulations.

Consider that developing an innovative drug typically takes 12-15 years from R&D to market approval. As a Class III medical device requiring human implantation, the brain-computer interface faces an even longer and costlier commercialization path.

Take domestic leader BrainCo as an example: despite successfully completing over 30 clinical trials for its NEO system, obtaining the Class III medical device registration certificate from the National Medical Products Administration remains a distant goal. During this process, brain-computer interface devices require larger-scale, multi-center, long-term clinical trials to verify long-term safety, efficacy, and stability.

Prolonged clinical trial periods and escalating R&D costs drive up product pricing. While some Chinese regions like Sichuan and Hubei have included brain-computer interface medical services in their fee schedules, surgical costs still reach hundreds of thousands of yuan, placing them beyond reach for many ordinary patients and hindering true mass adoption.

Beyond surgical and long-term maintenance risks, electrode implantation into the brain may trigger ethical risks related to social equity and identity, as brain signals represent humanity's most fundamental privacy. Once readable, these signals risk theft, misuse, or even tampering.

In contrast, the non-invasive approach represented by BrainCo cleverly avoids surgical risks and stringent medical regulations, offering shorter commercialization paths and faster market acceptance. Recently, multiple media outlets reported that BrainCo completed a new round of substantial financing and is confidentially preparing for an IPO, reflecting capital market optimism about its prospects.

BrainCo indeed leads globally in non-invasive brain signal acquisition precision and decoding algorithms. By 2025, the company had secured over 460 authorized patents, with products like intelligent bionic hands and legs providing tangible benefits to disabled individuals.

However, challenges emerge as brain-computer interfaces expand from medical rehabilitation to broader consumer markets.

Compared to invasive interfaces, BrainCo's non-invasive consumer products like sleep aids and focus training headbands face criticism as 'intellectual tax' due to low signal-to-noise ratios and poor resolution from skull-separated brain signal collection, coupled with difficulties quantifying neural effects like sleep quality and focus.

One path climbs the 'Everest' of medical devices, fraught with obstacles; the other struggles in the red ocean of consumer products, unable to quickly establish technological barriers. The brain-computer interface commercialization journey appears bustling but actually requires overcoming critical challenges regardless of the chosen development direction.

| When 'Digital Immortality' Clashes with 'Clinical Reality' |

Human-machine symbiosis, consciousness uploading, and digital immortality—the ultimate vision Musk painted for brain-computer interfaces is undoubtedly thrilling. Yet for practitioners on the eve of industrialization, solving fundamental 'clinical reality' engine issues before reaching the stars of digital immortality determines whether the future spacecraft can even take off.

The era of 'PPT dream-weaving' across tech sectors is ending. Capital markets and the brain-computer interface industry are returning to rationality at an unprecedented speed. The next competitive focus will shift from grand narratives to who first delivers medical results, bringing tangible changes to patients with paralysis, ALS, and other conditions.

Before the true industrial inflection point arrives, China's brain-computer interface industry must navigate three narrow gates: regulatory approval, payment capacity, and market ecosystems.

In China, any medical device requiring human implantation must pass the strictest Class III medical device approval. Brain-computer devices similarly need this 'birth certificate'—the only legal pathway from experimental prototypes to mature products—to gain market access and trust from doctors and patients.

Yet no matter how advanced a technology, it cannot generate true social or commercial value if patients cannot afford it. To address core payment challenges, companies must reduce costs through technological iteration and mass production while advocating for brain-computer interface devices to be included in medical insurance reimbursement lists, fulfilling the original aspiration of technological inclusivity.

Of course, successful brain-computer interface applications depend on more than surgical success—they require a complex process spanning patients' entire lifecycles.

Future winners in the brain-computer interface track will be ecosystem builders integrating 'technology-clinical-institutional' resources, upgrading from single device sales to full-cycle medical services covering assessment, surgery, and rehabilitation training, forming sustainable commercial loops.

Capital markets and practitioners must recognize that the brain-computer interface industry's path to maturity remains arduous. However, national policy support and capital market enthusiasm inject unprecedented momentum and hope into this challenging journey.

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