Crazy theory time:

In the newest trailer, V and D'Shaun shoot each other, then V awakens in a landfill/scrapyard... the first thing you'd assume is that D'Shaun survived and that his goons dumped your body there, but if you think about that, it doesn't make sense. You're seeing Silverhand, who's probably some A.I. from the immortality chip presenting itself as your childhood hero so that you respond favourably to it. Even if the chip was jammed in your shard-slot and couldn't be removed, D'Shaun could've just cut your head off to make an easy get-away... but with Corporates and law-enforcement descending on your location, dragging your whole body along would've been a dumb move, and he certainly wouldn't have thrown the chip away in a landfill afterwards. If D'Shaun fled the scene immediately and left you behind, you would have awakened in the morgue. What if... whatever A.I. was on the chip has escaped the chip, and has the ability to drag your consciousness along with it, essentially re-installing itself and YOU into a new body when you die, like a Cylon resurrection hub? :) Maybe you're waking up in someone else's body... or (judging by the eye-level) you've been stashed in the FlatHead for safekeeping... :p :D (And a drone IS something that would be disposed of in a scrapyard, so that really fits.)

BTW, if you look at the gameplay demo's character creation screen, you'll notice that Johnny Silverhand is only one of THREE childhood heroes that you can choose from. If they got Keanu to voice Silverhand, I wonder what other crazy talent they'll surprise us with for Morgan Blackhand and Saburo Arasaka? ;D (Since Morgan was essentially Pondsmith's personal character within the pen-and-paper game, it'd be oddly fitting if he was voiced by Mike, and someone like Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa would be an awesome choice for Saburo.) Oh, well... time will tell. So excited... :)

In cyberpunk parlance the immortality AI chip is called "construct". It is a device used to upload somebody's mind into it. The hero of a typical cyberpunk story often meets one in his journey or can have one as a companion. It is a cyberpunk cliche. Since CD Project apparently want to put all worn out cyberpunk cliches into the game, I think your theory is very plausible.

Yes, the re-occurring trope man merging with machine has been one ever since Neuromancer was first written. I think your theory is flawed however. It'd be very easy to shoot V in the head and leave V for dead at a junkyard and I sincerely doubt many would find the prospect of working on their character for a long time, only to have their character become pointless since you conscious -jump between bodies like a ghost, very appealing at all.

And it makes sense that the Immortality chip would be something like that, since I had no idea wtf a chip would be useful for in terms of immortality. So that makes, but partial sense.

I prefer however not to speculate since I'd rather find out through gameplay myself... But we all know the entirety of the story will be spoiled in less than a day after it's official launch due to people playingit early and / or speedrunnng the game just to be able to say " First! " .

But indeed. We shall see.

( Picture below is from the Ghost in the Shell manga. I recommend the 1995 movie over the manga personally but it serves to illustrate the trope. )