China Plans Broader Push to Develop Tech Like Musk’s Neuralink

(Bloomberg) — China said Monday that it plans to task a committee with drafting standards to guide the use of brain-computer interfaces — a sign that the country intends to step up its own development of this emerging technology.

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China will invite relevant industrial and technical experts from enterprises, research institutes, universities and other industries to work on a series of standards including brain information encoding and decoding, data communication, and data visualization, according to the plan issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Brain-computer interfaces are a relatively new area of technical research in which signals from the brain are used to control an external device — say, a robotic limb. Perhaps the best-known company developing this technology is Neuralink Corp, which Elon Musk co-founded in 2016. The firm is working on an implantable device and is seeking people with quadriplegia to participate in a clinical trial, according to its website.

The Chinese government’s announcement is a signal that it intends to accelerate the development of similar technologies to rival western competitors like Neuralink after mostly concentrating its efforts thus far in academic research settings.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on China to step up its domestic innovation because other countries dominate certain strategic technologies. In particular, Beijing is pouring billions of dollars into its semiconductor industry, as the US considers further restrictions on China’s access to chip technology.

Until now, China’s efforts in brain—computer interfaces have largely been confined to university-affiliated research teams. In March, CCTV reported that a patient who was paralyzed regained some mobility after getting a device, called Neural Electronic Opportunity, implanted in his brain by Tsinghua University. China in February published an ethics guide for brain-computer interface studies.

The ministry is seeking public opinions on the matter. Responses are due July 30.

–With assistance from Debby Wu.