When Elon Musk’s Neuralink formally introduced 2026 because the “Year of Mass Production”, the home mind-pc interface (BCI) observe witnessed a important capital transfer.
On March thirteenth, Shanghai Jieti Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter known as Jieti Medical) introduced the completion of a strategic financing of 500 million yuan. The funding was led by Alibaba, with SDIC Venture Capital Co., Ltd. following swimsuit. Existing shareholders resembling Tencent, Yuanlai Capital, OrbiMed, Yuanhe Origin, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, Source Code Capital, and Shanghai SDIC Leading Fund additionally continued to take part.
So far, Jieti Medical has accrued a complete financing of over 1.1 billion yuan in the previous 12 months.
It is value mentioning that that is additionally the primary enterprise in this area invested in by Alibaba and Tencent, reflecting the ambition of those tech giants to format the following-era human-pc interplay infrastructure.
A Returnee Female Doctor Leads the Team to Face the Global Technological High Point
The entrepreneurial story of Jieti Medical started with the encounter of two younger scientists. Its core founder, Li Xue, is a returnee entrepreneur. She graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a bachelor’s diploma. From 2016 to 2020, she studied on the School of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Texas at Austin and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Rice University in the United States, efficiently acquiring grasp’s and doctoral levels from each universities.
In 2020, after finishing her research, Li Xue selected to return to China and labored on the Brain Intelligence Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was right here that she met Zhao Zhengtao, who was additionally a key scientific researcher. Based on their widespread scientific analysis beliefs and industrial aspirations, Li Xue and Zhao Zhengtao based Jieti Medical in 2021.
In phrases of the technical route, Jieti Medical selected the invasive technical route, which is similar as that of Musk’s Neuralink. Zhao Zhengtao defined that for BCI, from non-invasive, semi-invasive to invasive, the technical issue regularly will increase, and so does the appliance worth. “From the very beginning, we at Jieti Medical hoped to solve the most difficult and most valuable problems.”
In simply a few years, Jieti Medical has mastered a variety of globally main applied sciences, together with electrodes, methods, algorithms, and surgical robots. The firm has independently developed extremely-versatile electrodes which can be 1/100 the thickness of a hair and the world’s smallest wi-fi BCI implant. In 2025, it accomplished the primary home potential medical trial of invasive BCI and its merchandise entered the “Green Channel” for innovation of the National Medical Products Administration.
In 2026, the medical progress of Jieti Medical continued to speed up. At the start of the 12 months, counting on the surgical robotic independently developed by the corporate, Jieti Medical efficiently accomplished the medical implantation of the 256-channel wi-fi excessive-throughput invasive BCI system (WRS02) to be registered, and the mind-managed interplay operate was successfully verified.
According to the plan, the corporate plans to conduct massive-scale multi-heart registration medical trials in the center of 2026 and full the enrollment and implantation surgical procedures of about 40 sufferers inside the 12 months. By the top of 2026, the whole variety of medical implantations of Jieti Medical is predicted to method and even exceed the present complete variety of medical trials of Neuralink below Musk (at present about 21 circumstances), marking that Chinese BCI enterprises are sprinting in direction of the main place in the worldwide commercialization and medical implementation course of.
Alibaba’s Debut in the BCI Track
This main funding is Alibaba’s first direct transfer in the BCI area. Before this, Alibaba’s participation primarily remained on the stage of ecological cooperation – exploring this slicing-edge observe by technical cooperation or oblique funding.
Alibaba Cloud as soon as cooperated with Zhentai Intelligence on the algorithm platform stage. Zhentai Intelligence is a startup specializing in the BCI rehabilitation area. Wang Haochong, the founding father of Zhentai Intelligence, mentioned, “Currently, the company is building a more powerful underlying system architecture for the BCI system, which requires the support of a powerful cloud computing platform. In the future, we will also continue to discuss cooperation with Alibaba Cloud to promote the implementation of BCI technology. This requires the support of more R & D forces to jointly explore the mysterious brain. We hope to establish links and cooperation with more enterprises in the fields of smart communities and smart healthcare through Alibaba Cloud.”
This is strictly Alibaba’s typical method earlier than: as an alternative of direct funding, it makes use of cloud computing, massive fashions, and computing energy because the fulcrum to supply infrastructure assist for BCI startups. Alibaba Cloud’s technical accumulation in the fields of multi-modal massive fashions, computing energy, and clever {hardware} makes it naturally appropriate for the position of an enabler.
An identical format can be mirrored in the actions of Ant Group. In July 2025, Ant Group’s slicing-edge expertise platform “Ant Afu” invested 1.5 billion yuan in Diany Diagnostic. At the identical time, it systematically built-in Ant’s accumulation in synthetic intelligence, massive knowledge evaluation, and BCI underlying expertise with Diany Diagnostic’s medical testing community, medical knowledge sources, and medical utility eventualities.
The emergence of Jieti Medical has given Alibaba the chance to enter the underlying working system of the following-era human-pc interplay. Invasive BCI naturally requires the assist of huge fashions, computing energy, and terminal ecological carriers, that are precisely Alibaba’s benefits.
Li Xue, the founder, mentioned, “BCI is not only a medical technology but also the ultimate integration of life science and information technology.” She believes that “the deep accumulation of large enterprises in multi-modal large models, computing power, intelligent hardware, and ecological deployment can be deeply integrated with Jieti Medical’s globally leading BCI underlying hardware barrier advantages and clinical transformation experience in the future.”
The financing of Jieti Medical just isn’t an remoted case however a microcosm of the collective explosion of the Chinese BCI business. In the primary quarter of 2026 alone, the business witnessed intensive actions:
At the top of January, Qiangnao Technology submitted an IPO utility to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in a confidential method. In February, Shuli Innovation, a BCI expertise enterprise, introduced the completion of a Series C financing. In the identical month, Zhiran Medical, an invasive BCI firm, introduced the completion of a Series A+ financing of 300 million yuan. On March twelfth, Gestalt Technology, a home arduous expertise enterprise specializing in ultrasonic BCI, introduced the completion of a 150 million yuan angel spherical financing…
With the in – depth participation of huge enterprises resembling Alibaba and Tencent, the home BCI business is bidding farewell to the early stage of “single – combat” and coming into a new stage of coordinated growth of “technology + capital + ecosystem”. In this technological recreation associated to the longer term human – machine relationship, Jieti Medical, in which Alibaba has positioned its guess, could turn out to be the important thing drive for China to overhaul on the curve in this world technological competitors.
This article is from the WeChat official account “Lieyun Selection”. Author: Han Wenjing. Republished by 36Kr with permission.