{"id":26046,"date":"2025-08-13T13:08:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/sam-altman-backs-neuralink-rival-merge-labs\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T13:08:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:08:52","slug":"sam-altman-backs-neuralink-rival-merge-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/sam-altman-backs-neuralink-rival-merge-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Altman Backs Neuralink Rival, Merge Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

Merge Labs will focus on developing brain-computer interfaces (BCI)<\/span>. The name reflects the “merge”\u2014the moment when humans and machines unite.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Altman wrote<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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<\/a> the completion of its first chip implantation in a human.<\/p>\n

Earlier in April, a woman paralyzed after a stroke regained her speech<\/a> after 18 years of silence, thanks to an experimental brain-computer interface and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[438,1190],"class_list":["post-26046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-openai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"281","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}