Brant Frey
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@BrantFrey
Husband, Dad, Commercial Printing Entrepreneur, mountaineer, Captain of Marines, Citizen
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗟𝗶𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗿, who was convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University, has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen to pursue technology the 🇨🇳 government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Lieber is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as ALS and restoring movement in paralyzed patients. But it also has potential military applications: scientists at 🇨🇳 PLA have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting mental agility and situational awareness. Lieber was found guilty by a jury and convicted in Dec 2021 of making false statements to federal investigators about his ties to a Chinese state program to recruit overseas talent, and tax offenses related to payments he received from a Chinese university. He served two days in prison and six months under house arrest, and was fined $50,000 and ordered to pay $33,600 in restitution to the IRS. During the case, his defense said he was suffering from an incurable lymphoma, which was in remission, and he was fighting for his life. Three years after he was sentenced, Lieber is now overseeing China’s state-funded i-BRAIN, or the Institute for Brain Research, Advanced Interfaces and Neurotechnologies, with access to dedicated nanofabrication equipment and primate research infrastructure unavailable to him at Harvard. The lab is an arm of the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation, or SMART. Lieber: “I arrived on April 28, 2025 with a dream and not much more, maybe a couple bags of clothes. Personally, my own goals are to make Shenzhen a world leader.” SMART last year appointed Lieber as an investigator, according to a post on i-BRAIN’s website dated May 1, 2025. That news was covered by some media outlets. The same day, i-BRAIN said Lieber had also been appointed its founding director — an announcement that went unreported at the time. Lieber’s lab has access to dedicated primate research facilities and chip-making equipment; that it sits within a sprawling ecosystem of state-backed institutions bankrolled by billions of dollars in government funding; and that it is housed within an institution that is luring top scientific talent back from the US. Lieber’s ability to reconstitute his laboratory after a federal criminal conviction for lying about his ties to China shows how US safeguards on technology with potential military uses haven’t kept pace with Chinese government efforts to acquire it. That concern is amplified because of Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy, whereby civilian scientific resources and research are shared with the military. “China has weaponized against us our own openness and our own efforts for innovation. They’ve flipped that and turned it around against us, and they’re taking advantage of it.” 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 Lieber’s new perch appears to give him richer resources than he had in the US. In Shenzhen, i-BRAIN in Feb installed a DUV lithography system made by ASML. At Harvard, Lieber used shared lithography equipment at the university’s Center for Nanoscale Systems. The center serves more than 1,600 users annually. i-BRAIN’s model is two generations behind restricted machines, but still likely to cost around $2M. On the same campus, Lieber also has access to Brain Science Infrastructure (BSI) Shenzhen, a research lab with 2,000 primate cages and dedicated space for i-BRAIN’s work. Many researchers in the field consider primate trials a prerequisite for human trials for invasive brain-computer interfaces. The BSI facility is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is funded by the Shenzhen government. Domestic and international researchers are being recruited by i-BRAIN for electrophysiology studies on rhesus monkeys as models for 1/n reuters.com/world/china/co…
A convicted former Harvard scientist is now the architect of China’s push to "blur the distinction between electronics and the human brain." Charles Lieber, once the world’s top-ranked chemist and chair of Harvard’s chemistry department, has resurfaced as the founding director of i-BRAIN in Shenzhen. Just three years after his U.S. federal conviction for lying about ties to the Thousand Talents Program, Lieber is overseeing a state-funded institute bankrolled by a government that has declared brain-computer interfaces a "national priority." The resource gap between his new lab and Harvard is staggering: Unlimited Primate Access: Lieber now has access to 2,000 primate cages at the Brain Science Infrastructure Shenzhen—a resource far beyond what was available at Harvard, which closed its primate center in 2015. Cutting-Edge Hardware: His lab recently installed a $2 million deep ultraviolet lithography system from ASML to print the microscopic circuits essential for neural implants. Billion-Dollar Backing: i-BRAIN is part of a "manicured" science hub where parent institutions operate with five-year budgets totaling roughly $2 billion. While Lieber’s work aims to treat conditions like ALS, the U.S. Defense Department warns that China’s military is investigating this exact technology to engineer "super soldiers" with enhanced situational awareness. Analysts call Lieber "Exhibit A" for why U.S. safeguards are failing; despite being caught and punished, one of America’s greatest scientific minds simply took his expertise to the very regime the U.S. was trying to keep it from. As Lieber told a Shenzhen conference in December: "I arrived with a dream... my own goals are to make Shenzhen a world leader." #CharlesLieber #ChinaTech #BrainComputerInterface #NationalSecurity #Shenzhen #Harvard #AI #Neurotech
