Elon Musk’s Neuralink gets the headlines for brain implants, but the first brain-computer interface to be approved for ordinary commercial use is Chinese. Regulators there have cleared a device called NEO, developed by Neuracle Technology with Tsinghua University, for sale — while Neuralink remains in human trials in the United States. The approval puts China ahead in the part of the race that actually matters to patients: getting a device out of the lab and into hospitals.
Who it is for
NEO is approved for people aged 18 to 60 who are paralysed by a spinal-cord injury but retain some hand movement. The implant reads the brain’s electrical signals, converts them to digital commands and uses them to drive assistive equipment — most visibly a robotic glove that helps the user’s own hand grip and release. The goal is restoring lost function, not a general-purpose “mind control” interface.
How it differs from Neuralink
The distinction is where the electrodes go. Neuralink threads its electrodes into the cortex, the brain tissue itself, which gives the richest signal and the highest surgical risk. NEO, a device roughly the size of a coin with eight sensors, is placed on the dura mater — the tough protective membrane that surrounds the brain — without entering the tissue beneath. The sensors pick up signals through the membrane and send them to a computer, where software translates them into usable commands. Researchers say the approach makes the surgery considerably lower-risk, and it is widely assumed that this safety margin is what persuaded Chinese regulators to approve it for general use.
The evidence so far
NEO has been tested in clinical trials on several dozen patients. The most discussed case is Dong Hui, a 39-year-old from Henan province paralysed in a road accident, whose recovery of hand function with the implant became the public face of the programme. Trials of this size can show that a device works and is safe enough to approve; they cannot yet show how it performs across thousands of patients over years, which is what the commercial rollout will now reveal.
Why the trade-off matters
Brain interfaces face a permanent tension between signal quality and safety. Deeper electrodes read more, and damage more. NEO’s bet is that for the specific job of restoring hand movement, a lower-resolution signal from outside the brain is good enough — and that patients and regulators will choose the option that does not require electrodes in living tissue. Neuralink’s bet is the opposite: that richer signals unlock capabilities, from cursor control to speech, that a surface device never will. Both may be right for different patients. For now, only one is on sale.
