China just crossed a threshold few expected so soon. In March its regulators cleared the first invasive brain-computer interface for commercial sale. The device, called NEO, comes from Shanghai-based Neuracle Medical Technology. A coin-sized implant sits atop the brain’s protective membrane rather than piercing deep into tissue. For patients like 39-year-old Dong Hui the difference proved immediate. Dong suffered a spinal-cord injury in a car crash six years earlier. He arrived at the hospital paralyzed from the neck down. Surgeons placed the NEO implant in November 2024. Within days he began training with a robotic glove. On the ninth day after surgery his right hand closed around a ball without help from the glove. Months later, sitting in his Henan courtyard, he picked up a pen. He wrote his name, the words “Thank you,” and the date. “I couldn’t believe I was able to write again,” he told MIT Technology Review .…