Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: OpenAI and Sam Altman are reportedly creating a startup rival to Elon
Musk's Neuralink

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:30:22 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-and-sam-al...

Sam Altman is preparing to co-found a new company funded by OpenAI that will
go up against Elon Musk's Neuralink, The Financial Post reported. The
startup, called Merge Labs, will use AI for its brain-computer interface and
compete directly with Neuralink, along with other nascent companies in the
field like Precision Neuroscience and Synchron.

The name Merge Labs comes from a term Altman used in 2017 called "the merge"
that describes the moment human brains and computers come together. The
company will raise funds, most from OpenAI's ventures team, that will set its
valuation at $850 million. Altman will co-found Merge Labs with Alex Blania
(from World, an eyeball scanning company also backed by OpenAI) but won't
invest any capital himself, according to three people with direct knowledge
of the project.

Altman has been interested in the topic of machine-brain interfaces for years
and suggested in the 2017 article above that the merge could arrive as soon
as 2025 (it didn't). More recently, he wrote in another blog post a "high-
bandwidth brain-computer interface" could soon be developed with the aid of
recent tech advances.

Altman's Merge Labs will be a direct competitor to Musk's Neuralink,
intensifying the rivalry between the two that kicked off when Musk left
OpenAI's board in 2018. Mind link technology has existed for decades now, but
recent advances in implant tech and AI have allowed researchers to collect
and process higher signal levels from the brain.

Neuralink started its first human trials in January 2024 with quadriplegic
subject Noland Arbaugh and later implanted its tech into a second anonymous
subject. That subject, "Alex," has reportedly been able to play FPS games and
create 3D designs, while suffering from fewer issues and side effects as
Arbaugh.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-and-sam-al...
startup-rival-to-elon-musks-neuralink-123022874.html?src=rss

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