Top brain-machine interface start-up ‘in talks’ to set up Hong Kong presence

A mainland Chinese start-up specialising in brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) is “in talks” with the Hong Kong government about expanding its operations to the financial hub, the company’s founder has said after meeting the city’s leader in Hangzhou.

“We are in talks with Hong Kong. It is still in the initial stage,” BrainCo founder and CEO Han Bicheng told the Post on Wednesday.

Earlier that day, Han welcomed Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to the company’s office in the capital city of mainland China’s Zhejiang province.

“We are definitely very interested in the Hong Kong market. Hong Kong has very good conditions, and we will talk to the chief executive,” the start-up founder said.

Han said that at this stage, he was reluctant to elaborate on the potential forms of partnership the company would pursue with Hong Kong.

The neurotech company was incubated at Harvard University in 2015 and founded in Hangzhou in 2018, becoming one of the six Zhejiang-based, world-acclaimed technology start-ups widely known as the “six little dragons”.