The government will foster the brain-computer interface (BCI), which implants a chip in the brain to control devices using thoughts alone, as a future core industry. It is a plan to take the lead in an emerging brain future industry.

The Ministry of Science and ICT on Tuesday held the 44th Bioeconomy Comprehensive Policy Deliberation Committee meeting and announced a joint interagency national research and development (R&D) strategy for the brain future industry. The strategy is designed to turn domestic brain research capabilities that have entered the world’s leading ranks into a brain future industry the public can experience.

The government will designate BCI as one of its K-Moonshot missions and launch full-scale mission-oriented projects from 2027.

BCI is a technology that implants a chip in the human brain to operate a robotic arm or computer using thoughts alone. The government will secure clinically stable results for invasive (brain-implant) BCI, where clinical regulations are strict, focusing on intractable medical areas. For non-invasive BCI, where regulations are less strict, it will use wearable devices as a platform and pursue early commercialisation not only in healthcare but also in fields including entertainment and defence industries.

It will form mission-by-mission one-team groups spanning industry, academia, research institutes and hospitals to integrate strong component technologies dispersed across domestic institutions and support efforts from development to commercialisation. It will also build a regulatory cooperation system with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to speed up clinical work. It will also push this year to form a BCI alliance involving BCI research institutes and startups and leading companies by industry sector. It will expand R&D support to secure an ultra-wide gap in key component technologies including electrode materials for brain implants, brain neural network-focused semiconductors and decoding of brain neural signals.

The government will also pursue brain nervous system drug development alongside BCI. It will strengthen investment in platform technologies including blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration, reverse aging of the brain nervous system and brain organoids. The strategy is to overcome the high failure rate of related drug development and secure global competitiveness. It also plans to strengthen links between basic research and clinical work to develop treatments for intractable diseases including dementia, autism and depression.

It will also create industrial hubs. In Daegu, it will concentrate brain research infrastructure around the Korea Brain Research Institute, and in the Osong-Daejeon region it will build an open value chain between regional government-funded research institutes such as the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology and KAIST and the Osong bio industry cluster.

The government also decided to develop a brain neural network-focused foundation model trained on electroencephalogram and brain imaging data on three major brain functions: cognition, sensation and movement. It will pursue a digital twin of the human brain through government R&D. It also plans to push in earnest from next year a brain map construction project to secure vast amounts of brain data required for AI training.

To meet demand for laboratory animal resources such as primates, it will expand domestic breeding and testing hubs by region. Over the longer term, it will pursue replacing animal testing through brain organoids and a brain digital twin. It also plans to proceed with steps including establishing clinical research guidelines and building a cross-ministry regulatory-promotion cooperation system.

Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), deputy prime minister and science minister, said a time may come when people use AI by directly connecting it to the brain rather than to a smartphone. He said the government will boldly invest in BCI technology, one of the K-Moonshot missions that will change the world in 10 to 20 years, to secure global technological leadership.