
CHINA CRACKS SKULLS OPEN WHILE WEST DEBATES CONSENT FORMS
China just completed its first fully implanted wireless brain-computer interface clinical trial. World's second overall. Patient with complete spinal cord injury now controls devices with thoughts alone.
No external equipment. No wires. Battery-powered chip inside the skull transmitting brain signals to machines.
They're also working on visual reconstruction - electrical stimulation directly in the brain that lets blind people "see" through signals instead of eyes. Current prototype hits 0.1 vision - enough for object edges and obstacle avoidance.
Meanwhile, a $165 million brain science fund just launched in Shenzhen. New AI alliance focusing on neurological drugs, BCI, and brain health solutions. Moving "from laboratories to clinical use" at speed.
Here's what nobody's saying out loud: the tech that helps paralyzed people walk is the same tech that enables direct brain-to-machine control. The system that restores vision is the same system that can input visual data.
China doesn't waste time on decade-long ethics debates. They list BCI as a "future-oriented strategic industry" and greenlight clinical trials. No institutional review board paralysis. No public consent theater. Just results.
The West treats neural implants like they're playing with nuclear codes. China treats them like they're late to the party.
When Neuralink got FDA approval for human trials, it was news. When China completes wireless BCI surgery and announces visual reconstruction prototypes, it's a Tuesday in Shenzhen.
The gap isn't closing. It's widening. And the country that gets to brain-computer interfaces first isn't the one worried about informed consent forms - it's the one that sees disabled patients as acceptable test cases for technology that will eventually enhance everyone.
"Helping the blind see" sounds noble. What it actually means: perfecting the hardware to write data directly into human consciousness.
China knows this. They're just not pretending otherwise.
Source: CGTN