Would you get a brain chip implant? Tech mavens seem disturbingly bullish on the idea

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. If you could safely implant a chip in your brain to enhance your intelligence, would you? Some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful technologists want that future, including Elon Musk, who recently said he would ramp up production of his Neuralink brain chips this year as part of a noble effort to ensure humans can keep pace with superintelligent AI systems that might one day go awry.

Fellow billionaire Alexandr Wang, who is leading Meta’s programme to build such systems (the good kind) wants to delay having kids until Neuralink or similar tech can augment their intelligence, capitalizing on the neuroplasticity of their developing brains. A venture capitalist once told me the true advantage of AI would come when you could plug it directly into your mind, making you the smartest person in the room.

This pattern should feel familiar. Silicon Valley has invested trillions in building artificial general intelligence (AGI), despite no consensus on what it even means (and companies are now quietly backing away from the term).

A similar dynamic is emerging with brain-computer interfaces: grandiose visions built on conviction rather than strong evidence. Notwithstanding the obvious ethical problem of permanently ‘boosting’ the brain of a child who can’t give consent, Neuralink’s head surgeon Matthew MacDougall suggests that Wang may be planning a family around capabilities that don’t work as imagined.

But such enhancement dreams are not entirely fanciful when you look at how much the brain-tech industry has grown. Global venture capital investment in neurotechnology, which includes brain-computer interfaces and neuro-stimulation devices, rose to $2.3 billion in 2025 from $293 million a decade