As the wave of AI reshaping the world has yet to subside, AI billionaire Sam Altman has already set his sights on deeper frontiers—the human brain. On Thursday local time, Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup he co-founded, officially made its debut, announcing its ultimate mission: to break down the barriers between biological intelligence and artificial intelligence, enabling exponential leaps in human capability, autonomy, and experience.

Although no physical products have been released yet, Merge Labs immediately captured capital attention upon its launch. The company secured $252 million in seed funding, setting the second-highest single-round financing record in the field of neuroscience, second only to Neuralink, Elon Musk's company. According to PitchBook data, this figure far exceeds the early-stage financing scale of most neurotechnology companies. More notably, OpenAI was confirmed as the largest investor in this round, with Bain Capital and Gabe Newell, founder of Steam—"G胖"—also listed among the investors—Newell himself previously founded a neuroscience company, Starfish Neuroscience, and has long been involved in neural interface technology.

Differing from the current mainstream invasive approach, Merge Labs explicitly rejects implanting electrodes into the brain. Mikhail Shapiro, a professor of neuroscience at Caltech and co-founder of the company, emphasized that human perception of the world arises from the coordinated activity of billions of neurons. To achieve truly large-scale brain-computer interaction, three major bottlenecks must be simultaneously overcome: significantly increasing information bandwidth, expanding the brain's coverage, and greatly reducing invasiveness.

To this end, the team is exploring a new interactive paradigm at the molecular level. For example, using physical media such as ultrasound, which can penetrate deep tissue, they aim to achieve high-precision reading and regulation of neuronal activity without damaging brain tissue. This "non-invasive but high-bandwidth" technological approach aims to bring brain-computer interfaces from medical settings to the consumer market—perhaps in the future, ordinary people may simply wear a lightweight device to interact with AI systems through thought-level communication.

This vision aligns closely with Altman's previous ideas. Last August, he publicly stated his hope that "when I think of something, ChatGPT can respond immediately." Now, the establishment of Merge Labs represents the technical realization of this concept. Notably, Altman currently serves as a board member of the company personally, while OpenAI retains an observer seat on the board, although it has not assigned a representative, its strategic intent is evident.

At a time when Neuralink focuses on treating paralyzed patients and Synchron targets assistance for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Merge Labs has chosen a more radical and universally applicable path: developing a consumer-grade brain-computer device that healthy individuals can use daily. If its technological approach is validated, human-machine integration may no longer be limited to restoring functions but could become a new infrastructure for enhancing cognition and expanding experiences—a quiet yet profound neural revolution has already begun.