TMTPOST – As a new year dawned in Shanghai, China, it did with grace and hope. A woman patient in Huashan Hospital, unable to move or speak, thought of “Happy New Year 2025,”her mind was immediately read by a computer. Next the Chinese characters were displayed on a screen while a robotic hand performed a heart-shaped gesture symbolizing love.
The first mind-controlled new year greetings marked a milestone in the brain-computer interface (BCI) research. The stunt, which involves real-time Chinese speech decoding and motor decoding, was masterminded by NeuroXess, a startup company backed by Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute.
The success of the clinical trial demonstrated significant advances in both motor and language decoding, enabling the translation of thoughts into actions (“do”) and words (“speak”). With this breakthrough, NeuroXess became the world’s sole company to achieve real-time motor decoding and real-time Mandarin decoding using invasive BCI technology.
In December 2024, based on the fully self-developed 256-channel implantable flexible BCI developed by NeuroXess, the teams of Tiger H. Tao, the founder of NeuroXess, and Jinsong Wu at Huashan Hospital successfully conducted the first clinical trial of real-time Chinese speech decoding.
During the clinical trial, an epilepsy patient with a brain tumor in the language area achieved full coverage of 418 Chinese syllables decoding within seven days of the surgery. The accuracy rate was as high as 71% for 142 commonly used Chinese syllables, and a delay was less than 100 milliseconds, which marked the highest level of real-time Chinese speech decoding to date. Based on real-time Chinese speech decoding, the patient was able to synthesize Chinese in real-time through thought, control a digital avatar, interact with large language models, and convert speech neural signals into real-time commands to control a dexterous robotic hand.
In another clinical trial in August 2024, the teams successfully enabled a 21-year-old epilepsy patient with a motor area lesion to control digital applications such as social media WeChat, Outlook, and e-commerce platform Taobao, as well as smart home devices and a wheelchair using the BCI device. This trial indicated the practicality of the technology for daily activities of patients with motor deficits.
Speech Decoding, the Frontier Technology
While the brain-computer interface (BCI) is gaining momentum globally, with companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink pioneering invasive BCI technologies, the focus has primarily been on motor decoding, scientists pointed out during the recent BCI Society International Forum in Shanghai.
“Remarkable achievements include enabling paralyzed patients to control robotic arms for drinking water, playing video games, or using exoskeletons to walk again. However, the next frontier is language decoding,” said one participant during the conference.
Compared with the decoding of 26 alphabets in English, the Mandarin has 418 syllabuses and four tones. The research teams used the biggest database in the Chinese language to achieve the breakthrough.
Peng Lei, the CEO of NeuroXess, noted that the speech decoding opens up a vast space, where patients can regain their speech capability and healthy people can have the direct connection and interface of both human brain intelligence and artificial intelligence and turn the exchange by minds in the science fiction into the reality, creating a super brain.
NeuroXess, China’s Answer to Neuralink
Back in 2014, Tao joined Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences after receiving a doctoral degree from Boston University. In 2021, inspired by Elon Musk’s Neuralink, he founded NeuroXess, with a focus on the development and application of invasive BCI technologies.
Tao said that his company aims to catch up with and overtake Neuralink and thus they are working on motor decoding which Neuralink is doing. “NeuroXess is also engaging in speech decoding, in particular Chinese language decoding, which is more complex than English language decoding,” he added.
NeuroXess collaborated with top neurosurgeons in China, in particular with Mao Ying, the head of Huashan Hospital, and his team, which enabled the company to apply their research. Mao introduced Tao to Tianqiao Chen, a billionaire entrepreneur and a philanthropist.
“When NeuroXess started to seek investments from venture capitalists, they were interested initially. However, they backed off upon learning the commercialization may take over 10 years. When I was about to give up on raising money, Tianqiao had a video conference with me. After one hour of the meeting, Tianqiao decided to pour in 30 million yuan (about US$4.2 million). He also told me to take it easy and he is willing to wait for 20 or 30 years (before the commercialization). If it fails, that would be seen as his philanthropic act for scientific research,” Tao recalled.
Tao also said that he benefited from Chen’s international perspective and insights. Chen, who also supported speech decoding of the English language, continued to make investments in NeuroXess in the following financing rounds.
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