(Yicai) May 13 -- Chinese startup StairMed Technology has made notable progress in testing its invasive brain-computer interface, allowing a quadruple amputee to play racing games using only brain activity.

StairMed recently released a video showing a person controlling a computer and playing video games through the company’s brain chip, The Paper reported yesterday. This pre-trial development positions the Shanghai-based startup as the first in China—and the second globally, after Elon Musk’s Neuralink—to launch human clinical trials of an invasive BCI, according to company sources. 

Founder Zhao Zhengtuo said StairMed plans to begin large-scale clinical trials across multiple locations, aiming to recruit 30 to 40 participants. Based on the timelines for recruitment, follow-up, data collection, and regulatory review, the product is expected to reach the market by around 2028.

The first participant, who lost all four limbs in a high-voltage electric shock accident, received the BCI implant on March 25. Two flexible electrodes, each just one-hundredth the thickness of a human hair, were inserted into the brain through minimally invasive surgery and connected to a coin-sized implant embedded in the skull. After less than two months of training, the participant is now able to operate a computer using his thoughts.

Zhao noted that StairMed’s implant is around half the thickness of Neuralink’s. Surgeons only need to make a five-millimeter incision in the skull above the motor cortex, followed by a small drilled hole to insert the electrode tips about five to eight mm into the brain tissue.

StairMed plans to launch its next-generation product early next year, with the goal of enabling its BCI to connect with more complex external devices. The company is also working on developing language decoding capabilities.

Editor: Emmi Laine