An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while at Harvard University rebuilt his research laboratory in Shenzhen to develop a technology that the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: implanting electronic components in the human brain.
Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in . The technology has shown promise in treating diseases such as ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and restoring movement in paralyzed patients. But it also has potential for military applications: Scientists from China’s People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to create supersoldiers by enhancing mental agility and situational awareness, according to the US Department of Defense.
Lieber was found guilty by a jury and convicted in December 2021 of making false statements to federal investigators about his ties to a Chinese state program to recruit foreign talent, as well as tax crimes related to payments received from a Chinese university. He served two days in jail and six months under house arrest, was fined $50,000 and ordered to pay $33,600 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). During the trial, his defense claimed that he suffered from incurable lymphoma, that he was in remission, and that he was fighting for his life.
Three years after his conviction, Reuters found that Lieber now oversees i-BRAIN, or the Institute for Brain Research, Advanced Interfaces and Neurotechnologies, funded by the Chinese state, with access to nanofabrication equipment and primate research infrastructure that was not available to him at Harvard. The laboratory is an arm of the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation, or SMART.
“I arrived on April 28, 2025 with a dream and little else, maybe a few suitcases of clothes,” Lieber said of his move to China at a Shenzhen government conference in December. “Personally, my goal is to make Shenzhen a world leader.”
Lieber, through an assistant, declined the interview request, citing “current commitments.” He did not respond to written questions sent by Reuters.
According to a post on the i-BRAIN website dated May 1, 2025, SMART appointed Lieber as a researcher last year. This news was reported by some media outlets. On the same day, i-BRAIN announced that Lieber had also been named its founding director – an announcement that was not made public at the time.
This report is the most complete account of Lieber’s activities since he moved to China. Reuters reports for the first time that his laboratory has access to facilities dedicated to primate research and ; which is part of a vast ecosystem of institutions supported by the State and financed by billions of dollars in government funds; and that it is based at an institution that is attracting back the best scientific talent in the United States.
In 2011, Lieber was named the best chemist in the world for the previous decade, in a published by Thomson Reuters, the parent company of the Reuters news agency. Thomson Reuters, which in 2016 sold the division responsible for preparing the ranking, declined to comment.
Some analysts say Lieber’s ability to rebuild his lab after a federal criminal conviction for lying about his ties to China demonstrates how American safeguards for technologies with potential military use have not kept up with the Chinese government’s efforts to acquire them. This concern is amplified by Beijing’s civil-military fusion strategy, in which civilian scientific resources and research are shared with the military.
“China has weaponized our own openness and our own innovation efforts against us,” said Glenn Gerstell, a nonresident senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former general counsel at the U.S. National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020. “They have turned that around and are taking advantage of the situation.”
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Defense did not respond to questions about the country’s development of brain-computer interfaces. SMART and i-BRAIN also did not respond to requests for comment about their research and Lieber’s hiring.
Primate research
Lieber’s new position appears to provide him with more abundant resources than he had in the United States.
In Shenzhen, i-BRAIN in February installed a deep ultraviolet lithography system manufactured by semiconductor equipment giant ASML (ASML.AS), according to the lab’s website. The Dutch company’s machines print the tiny circuits essential for next-generation chips. At Harvard, Lieber used lithography equipment shared at the university’s Center for Nanoscale Systems. The center serves more than 1,600 users annually, according to its website.
The i-BRAIN model is two generations behind feature-limited machines, but it should still cost about $2 million, according to Jeff Koch of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis.
ASML told Reuters it would not comment publicly about its customers.
On the same campus, Lieber also has access to the Shenzhen Brain Science Infrastructure (BSI), a research laboratory with 2,000 primate cages and space dedicated to i-BRAIN work, according to the latter’s website. Many researchers in the field consider primate testing a prerequisite for human testing of invasive brain-computer interfaces. The BSI facility is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and funded by the Shenzhen government. Neither responded to questions about brain-computer interface technology and the role of primate research in its development.
i-BRAIN is recruiting national and international researchers for electrophysiology studies in rhesus monkeys, used as models for brain-computer interfaces in humans, according to a post on its website from September 2025, which invites interested parties to contact Lieber.
There is no evidence that Lieber conducted primate research at Harvard. The prestigious Massachusetts university closed its New England Primate Research Center in 2015 under constant pressure due to animal welfare and funding issues.
Jung Min Lee, a researcher who co-wrote articles on nanofabrication with Lieber at Harvard, has joined him at i-BRAIN as a research associate professor, according to the institution’s website. Lee, who could not be reached for comment, specializes in integrating flexible electronic components into brain tissue.
Harvard did not respond to Reuters’ questions about Lieber and Lee.
John Donoghue, a professor at Brown University and a neuroscientist who pioneered the brain-computer interface system known as BrainGate, said work with primates is “absolutely crucial” to translating neural interface technology to humans, but faces regulatory and funding hurdles in the United States.
“With so many problems in non-human primate research here, having someone offering all this support, access to technology, a concentrated center, a national initiative – all of that is very attractive,” he told Reuters.
SMART’s 2026 budget, funded entirely by the Shenzhen government, increased by nearly 18% to about $153 million. The academy’s budget documents do not indicate the proportion of this funding going to i-BRAIN.
SMART was founded in 2023 under the presidency of Nieng Yan, a structural biologist. Her return to China a year earlier, after five years at Princeton University, was hailed by local media as the return of a “divine scientist.” Yan and Princeton did not respond to Reuters’ questions about their role in Shenzhen and Lieber’s hiring.
Next door to SMART is the legally separate but functionally twin Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, opened in 2019 with a Shenzhen government five-year budget of about $2 billion. Both are located in Guangming Science City, a national science hub with well-maintained parks and navigable canals. The two institutions share the same management and offices, and will also occupy an exclusive 750,000 square meter site that is under construction at an expected cost of US$1.25 billion. The Shenzhen Bay Laboratory did not respond to a request for comment.
Signs guiding visitors to SMART facilities display the slogan: “Innovate with the Party”. A Reuters reporter was denied access to the i-BRAIN offices while trying to deliver a letter to Lieber.
Lieber joins at least six other researchers who have transferred to SMART from American institutions, although all of them are Chinese-born researchers who have returned to their home country.
In March 2026, China included brain-computer interface technology as a national growth priority in its new five-year plan. Zheng Shanjie, head of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said in October that the advancement of brain-computer interfaces and related technologies “will be equivalent to the creation of a new high-tech sector in China in the next 10 years.”
According to the agency’s program description, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also investing in brain-computer interfaces for drone and cyber defense applications. Court documents show that research projects led by Lieber at Harvard have received more than $8 million in Defense Department funding since 2009. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the technology’s military uses and Lieber’s role in Shenzhen.
Competing for the Nobel Prize
Lieber’s 2021 conviction was one of the few victories for the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative, launched during Trump’s first term to combat Chinese economic espionage and intellectual property theft. The initiative was closed under President Joe Biden’s administration after a history of failures and criticism for racial discrimination.
While still on supervised probation, Lieber obtained court approval for at least three trips to China in 2024, including one granted by U.S. District Judge Denise Casper for “professional networking,” court documents show. Judge Casper did not respond to a request for comment.
Lieber’s defense team said in a 2023 pre-sentence memorandum that the scientist suffered from lymphoma and was largely confined to his home, leaving only for medical appointments, brief walks and occasional visits to a local farm. During his 30-year career at Harvard, he spent more than 80 hours a week in the laboratory, and when he wasn’t working, he devoted his time to “coaching wrestling and growing giant pumpkins in the backyard,” according to his defense.
Lieber admitted to being “young and stupid” in getting involved with China’s Thousand Talents Program, the state initiative to recruit foreign experts, his lawyer told the court in 2021. When he was arrested in 2020, Lieber told FBI agents that he “wanted to win a Nobel Prize” and be recognized for his work, according to prosecutors.
The FBI declined to comment and the Justice Department did not respond to questions.
The Lieber case illustrates a broader failure of U.S. policy, some analysts say.
“If you think of it as a vector for acquiring technology that goes against U.S. interests, we identified it, we punished it, and it didn’t stop the general trend,” said Emily de La Bruyère, co-founder of the China-focused consultancy Horizon Advisory and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank considered hard-line on foreign policy.
Gerstell, the former American official, described Lieber as the “perfect example” of how inadequate U.S. legal tools are.
“This is an individual who was convicted of exactly what we want him to be convicted of in this context, and yet as soon as he is released from house arrest, he is already in China,” he said.
