Dongwu Securities: The importance of the domestic market has increased significantly, and emphasis is placed on brain-computer interface blue ocean opportunities

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Dongwu Securities released a research report saying that according to the “Development Status and Future Prospects of Brain-Computer Interface Technology”, the global brain-computer interface market will reach about 7 billion US dollars by 2030, and the CAGR will reach 16.4% from 2025 to 2030. Investment and financing in the brain computer sector has also increased markedly in the past two years. The share of the domestic brain machine market has continued to increase in recent years. In 2023, the domestic brain machine market reached 1.73 billion yuan, accounting for more than 5 pcts more than in 2020. Judging from recent policy catalysts, on June 25, the national standard for non-invasive brain machine medical devices was publicly solicited for comments. The formulation of this standard is expected to promote the standardized and normalized development of the non-invasive brain machine industry; Shanghai is also laying out the country's first future brain-computer interface industrial agglomeration area to promote the clustered development of the brain-computer industry.

The main views of Dongwu Securities are as follows:

Accelerating development in the field of brain-computer interfaces

Brain-computer interface refers to establishing a direct channel for information exchange between a biological brain and an intelligent machine. According to the technical path, it can be divided into two categories: output type and input type. Output devices interpret brain signals and control external devices, while input devices mainly encode information into the brain. According to the direction of brain signal acquisition, it can be classified as invasive, semi-invasive and non-invasive.

The size of the global market in the brain computer sector continues to grow, and the importance of the domestic market has increased markedly. According to the “Development Status and Future Prospects of Brain-Computer Interface Technology”, the global brain-computer interface market will reach about 7 billion US dollars by 2030, and the CAGR will reach 16.4% from 2025 to 2030. Investment and financing in the brain computer sector has also increased markedly in the past two years. The share of the domestic brain machine market has continued to increase in recent years. In 2023, the domestic brain machine market reached 1.73 billion yuan, accounting for more than 5 pcts more than in 2020.

Domestic non-invasive routes are leading, while invasive technology has recently achieved breakthroughs in clinical trials. On the technical route, intrusive involves many difficult issues such as chip weight reduction, flexible electrodes, and human brain adaptation, and the overall barriers are high, and non-invasive racetracks are scattered. The core is how to use brain-computer technology to enable commercialization in vertical fields. Europe and America mainly take an intrusive route, while our country has a first-mover advantage in the non-intrusive direction.

In February 2025, Tianjin University and Tsinghua University collaborated to develop the world's first “dual loop” brain-computer interface system. Strong Brain Technology, one of the “Six Little Dragons” in Hangzhou, has become the world's leading company in non-intrusive brain-computer interface technology. Previously, it was invited to participate in CCTV interviews and received good feedback from the capital market.

Furthermore, China is gradually catching up with European and American companies represented by Neuralink on an invasive route. The local company BrainTiger Technology used an intrusive flexible brain-computer interface to reconstruct language function in aphasia patients this year. On June 14, the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully carried out the first forward-looking clinical trial of an invasive brain-computer interface in China. On June 21, China's interventional brain-computer interface successfully repaired the motor function of the affected body.

On June 27, Neuralink, a subsidiary of Musk, announced the latest research results and development direction. It was announced that in the future, humanoid robots can be taken over through brain-computer integration technology, significantly expanding the imagination and application space of invasive brain machines. The invasive field will also become a key future research direction in China.

The Chinese government has taken many measures to promote the standardization of the development of the brain computer industry

The brain-computer interface circuit is still in the 0-1 technical attack period, and mainstream national policies are actively cooperating to promote the development of the industry. The brain computer field in Europe and the US started early. As early as 2013, the European Union launched the “Human Brain Project” (HBP for short), and the US proposed the “Neural Engineering System Design Plan” (NESD for short) in 2017. The total plan cost 6,500 US dollars to officially enter the field of brain computer science. China first listed “brain science and brain-like research” as a major national scientific and technological innovation and engineering project in the “13th Five-Year Plan Outline” in 2016, but due to prudence and scientific principles, there was no first case of clinical application in humans until 2023.

Since 2024, in order to guide brain-computer interface research and application compliance, China issued the first “Brain-Computer Interface Research Ethical Guidelines” and the “Brain-Computer Interface Standardization Technical Committee Preparation Plan”. In March 2025, the National Health Insurance Administration issued the “Guidelines for Establishing Nervous System Medical Service Price Projects”, which is dedicated to separate projects for brain-computer interface technology, clarifying fees for brain-computer clinical applications, and standardizing and promoting the development of brain-computer interface services at the practical application level.

Furthermore, local policies have been introduced to actively follow up. Among them, Beijing and Shanghai are moving forward the fastest. Recently, Shandong Province also released a three-year plan for the brain-computer interface industry. Judging from recent policy catalysts, on June 25, the national standard for non-invasive brain machine medical devices was publicly solicited for comments. The formulation of this standard is expected to promote the standardized and normalized development of the non-invasive brain machine industry; Shanghai is also laying out the country's first future brain-computer interface industrial agglomeration area to promote the clustered development of the brain-computer industry.

Sorting out the links in the brain-computer interface industry chain and related targets

The upstream of the brain-computer interface industry chain supplies software and hardware equipment, mainly including EEG acquisition equipment, brain-computer interface chips, external nesting, databases and related algorithms; midstream supplies brain-computer interface products, including brain-computer acquisition platforms and brain-computer interface devices; downstream applications in healthcare, smart living, military and other fields.

There are high technical barriers on the midstream and upstream hardware equipment side, and subsequent scientific research and clinical breakthroughs are expected to bring significant catalysis compared to foreign technology gaps. Furthermore, the number of listed companies is relatively small, mainly event-catalyzed investments; while downstream applications are mainly oriented towards commercial implementation in the vertical field, with the scale and quality of user EEG data as the core competitiveness. Currently, the core application direction is still the medical field. As the cost of the middle and upstream scale increases, the application of brain computer products in the gaming and military fields is expected to be further promoted.

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