Sam Altman Backs Neuralink Rival, Merge Labs

OpenAI is set to participate in a funding round for Merge Labs, a competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, according to the Financial Times, citing sources.

The report indicates that the new venture aims to raise $250 million at a valuation of $850 million, with a significant portion of the funds coming from the venture arm of the ChatGPT developer.

Sam Altman has endorsed the initiative and will help launch the project alongside Alex Blania, who leads another of the entrepreneur’s startups, World.

The CEO of OpenAI will become a co-founder of the company but will not be involved in its day-to-day operations and does not plan to invest his own money.

Merge Labs will focus on developing brain-computer interfaces (BCI). The name reflects the “merge”—the moment when humans and machines unite.

In 2017, Altman wrote an extensive post on this topic, suggesting that the merging of computers with the brain could occur by 2025. In a new post, he noted that recent technological breakthroughs will soon lead to “high-speed brain-computer interfaces.”

The new project will directly compete with Neuralink, the company Musk founded in 2016. The billionaire was also a co-founder of OpenAI but left the board in 2018 following a conflict with Altman. Since then, the entrepreneurs have been rivals in the AI race.

Musk launched his own AI startup, xAI, in 2023 and is attempting to legally block the transformation of OpenAI into a commercial entity.

Neuralink is the most well-known player in the BCI sector, but other companies are also making significant progress. In July, neurotechnology company Paradromics announced the completion of its first chip implantation in a human.

Earlier in April, a woman paralyzed after a stroke regained her speech after 18 years of silence, thanks to an experimental brain-computer interface and artificial intelligence.