OpenAI is claimed to have mentioned buying the AI {hardware} startup that former Apple design lead Jony Ive is constructing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In response to The Info, OpenAI might pay round $500 million for the fledgling firm, referred to as io Merchandise.
Ive, who left Apple in 2019 to start out his personal design agency referred to as LoveFrom, confirmed that he was working with Altman on the AI {hardware} startup final yr in an interview with The New York Occasions. io Merchandise has raised an undisclosed quantity of funding from Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective and others, in keeping with The Info.
The Info’s report notes that OpenAI might find yourself partnering with as a substitute of buying io Merchandise, which at the moment has a small staff that features former Apple designers Tang Tan and Evans Hankey. io Merchandise has reportedly been engaged on completely different ideas of AI-enabled gadgets, together with sensible house devices. Final yr, The New York Occasions stated that the startup’s purpose was to construct merchandise which are “much less socially disruptive than the iPhone.”
