Alibaba and Tencent Just Co-Backed China's Brain-Machine Interface Champion While China marshals capital and state strategy around neurotech, Europe watches from the sidelines. ## What happened in China StairMed, a Chinese brain-machine interface company, has raised RMB 500 million ($72.5 million) in a strategic funding round led by Alibaba Group — with Tencent also participating. It is the first BCI company in China to be backed by both tech giants simultaneously. The deal does not exist in isolation. On March 13, 2026, China approved the world's first invasive brain-computer interface product for commercial use — a device made by Borui Kang Medical Technology (Shanghai). In December 2025, China announced an 11.6 billion yuan ($165 million) state brain science fund at the Shenzhen BCI & Human-Computer Interaction Expo. The country's national BCI strategy explicitly targets major technical breakthroughs by 2027 and aims to produce two or three globally competitive BCI…