In a video that previously circulated through the tech world, Elon Musk painted a specific vision for the year 2025: a future where invasive Neuralink technology melds with Optimus humanoid robots to restore lost limbs. It was a promise of sci-fi becoming reality.
But for Cicy Zhang, watching that video from her office in China, the reaction was different. It wasn’t awe at the future; it was a sense of déjà vu.
“So this is what Musk is predicting in the year 2025, which we already achieved 10 years ago,” Zhang told the audience at TechNode’s Intelligent Futures Summit in Hangzhou yesterday.
Zhang is the Vice President of BrainCo, a pioneering unicorn in the BCI arena. Headquartered in the Greater Boston area—within walking distance of Harvard and MIT—the company combines expertise in neuroscience, machine learning, and design to bridge the gap between biological minds and digital devices . While Silicon Valley captures headlines with surgical implants, BrainCo has been proving that this connection doesn’t require a scalpel—it just requires better algorithms .
The 0.38-Second Gap
The journey began not with a grand commercial ambition, but with a personal tragedy. Ten years ago, the team sought to help a colleague who lost his right hand. They wanted to restore not just the look of a hand, but the agency of it.
The result is a bionic hand that defies the clumsy, hook-like stereotypes of the past. Controlled by a cuff of sensors that read muscle signals (EMG) on the skin’s surface, the hand operates with a latency of just 0.38 seconds.
On the stage in Hangzhou, the technology spoke for itself. A user named Will, wearing the device, didn’t just grasp objects; he performed calligraphy live. In a nod to the event’s host, he elegantly wrote “动点科技（TechNode’s Chinese brand name）” with his prosthetic hand, mirroring the subtle intentions of his brain with eerie fluidity . The technology is so responsive that users have been filmed playing the piano, and in one viral demonstration, controlling a detached hand from 20 meters away .
When Robots Start Feeling Human
In a twist that highlights the speed of China’s tech ecosystem, BrainCo’s innovations are now bleeding into a new sector: humanoid robotics.
Zhang revealed that the same dexterity required to replace a human hand is exactly what robot manufacturers have been missing. “This year, we also very exponentially got a special need from a lot of humanoids,” she noted.
Unitree Robotics, a Hangzhou-based leader in the field, has integrated BrainCo’s hands into their G1 series robots. By replacing standard mechanical grippers with BrainCo’s “human-centric” hands, these robots are gaining the ability to perform complex operations. It is a symbiotic relationship: technology born from human need is now powering the next generation of machines.
Tech for the 99%
Perhaps the most distinctively “Chinese” aspect of BrainCo’s story is not the technology, but the business model behind it. High-tech prosthetics in the West can cost tens of thousands of dollars, putting them out of reach for many.
BrainCo took a different route. Zhang described a philanthropic model where corporations sponsor the devices. She cited Leapmotor, a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, which donated 5 million yuan to provide limbs for 100 amputees.
“We’re not making a penny from [these users],” Zhang explained. By covering only the bill of materials through donations, the company helped 6,000 people regain mobility in 2023 alone, with a target of 30,000 for the coming year.
Beyond the Physical
The company’s ambition extends beyond physical limbs to the “invisible” struggles of neurological health. Zhang introduced a digital therapy solution designed for autism, which uses EEG headbands to gamify social interaction training. She also shared clinical data on a sleep intervention device that uses cranial stimulation, showing a 50% reduction in sleep onset latency for 90% of users.
Looking ahead, BrainCo is expanding its footprint. Zhang confirmed that the company will open its first office outside the mainland in Hong Kong next year to serve a broader Asian market.
For BrainCo, the ultimate goal is ubiquity. Zhang closed her address with a three-step roadmap: helping 1 million amputees, assisting 10 million people with neurological conditions, and eventually enabling 100 million people to experience BCI technology.
As the summit concluded in Hangzhou, the contrast was clear. While Musk looks to the distant future of surgical enhancement, BrainCo is scaling a non-invasive reality today—building a world where technology restores dignity, one synapse at a time.
