Neuralink is growing in the Bay Area.
Elon Musk’s brain implant startup leased a vacant office building in South San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. South San Francisco has a reputation as one of the nation’s top health and life science hubs.
The property, at 499 Forbes Boulevard, spans 144,000 square feet and has been vacant since 2023, when biotech company InterVenn Biosciences exited as the industry faced rough waters. The building is across the street from the campus of biotech company Genentech, which is planning a multiple-phase renovation and expansion to the tune of $5 billion once complete.
Musk moved some of his companies’ operations to Texas from California during the pandemic. Tesla and SpaceX relocated their headquarters to Austin, and he closed Twitter’s offices in San Francisco after rebranding the company as X Corporation.
Despite those moves, Neuralink and Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI are growing in the Bay Area market. xAI is reportedly looking for an even bigger office space, hoping to secure at least 80,000 square feet of offices in the short-term and more than 250,000 square feet for future expansion, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The company is searching near its headquarters in Palo Alto but is also reportedly looking farther south, as far as Santa Clara.
Neuralink, known for its brain-computer interface designed to help people with paralysis control devices using their thoughts, is valued at more than $3 billion. The company began human trials last year with 12 patients around the world reportedly now using its implant technology. It recently raised another $650 million and has partnered with hospitals in the U.K. to expand its clinical research.
Its latest technology, a robotic surgical arm, has a backlog of 10,000 people interested, president and co-founder DJ Seo told PC Mag.
“The latency between a user’s intention and the system’s output is roughly 10 times faster than typical brain-to-muscle response,” Seo said of the implant technology, adding the robotic arm “could bring its implant to the masses.”
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