(Nature) – Chinese start-up firms are supercharging their efforts to develop algorithms for brain–computer interfaces that help people to walk and talk.

Chinese companies are racing to develop and deploy artificial-intelligence powered brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) that can help people to move, speak and control devices.

BCIs, which link a person’s brain to an external device or a computer using sensors placed around or inside the head, have been used in people who are paralysed and those with neurodegenerative diseases over the past decade.

In the past few years, companies, mostly in China and the United States, have added large language models to their brain devices. This enables scientists to decode brain activity more accurately than can be achieved using conventional signal-processing and data-analysing technologies, says Li Haifeng, a neuro-computing scientist at Harbin Institute of Technology in China.

In China, trials in small numbers of people are underway and some AI-powered brain devices will soon be sold to the public. (Read More)