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OpenAI and its co-founder Sam Altman are preparing to back a company that will rival Elon Musk’s Neuralink by developing technology to connect the human brain to a computer. The new venture, called Merge Labs, is seeking $250 million in funding, at a valuation of $850 million, with a significant portion of the money potentially coming from OpenAI’s venture capital arm.
Altman is a strong supporter of the launch, according to sources, and co-founded Merge Labs with Alex Blania, head of the eye-scanning digital identity project World, which Altman also funded. However, he will not be involved in day-to-day management.
Merge Labs is among the growing startups leveraging the latest advances in artificial intelligence to create more effective brain-computer interfaces. The company’s name refers to the concept of “merge,” the moment when humans and machines merge. Altman wrote in a blog post in 2017 that this could happen as early as 2025, and this year he said that “high-speed interfaces” will soon be available thanks to technological innovations.
The next project will be a direct competitor to Neuralink, founded by Musk in 2016. Neuralink develops systems for directly connecting the brain to a computer and this year raised $650 million, at a valuation of $9 billion. Its investors include Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, and Vy Capital. Altman himself had previously invested in Neuralink.
Altman and Musk co-founded OpenAI, but Musk left the board in 2018 after a difference of opinion. Since then, the two entrepreneurs have become bitter rivals, with Musk launching his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, and suing to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit organization.
The brain-computer interface market is booming. In addition to Neuralink, the startups Precision Neuroscience and Synchron are also active in the sector. Implant technology has been around for decades, but advances in electronics and brain signal processing algorithms have brought it much closer to practical use.
Altman has also invested in other technology ventures related to OpenAI, which is valued at $300 billion. His projects include the nuclear fission company Oklo and the nuclear fusion project Helion. OpenAI declined to comment.
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