OpenAI wants the future hardware to meet the potential of artificial intelligence (AI).
OpenAI is on its way to acquire AI hardware startup io for approximately $6.4 billion.
The company was created by Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer and the founder of LoveFrom, an American creative collective of designers and creatives.
The acquisition would provide OpenAI with the opportunity to create AI-powered hardware.
The change marks Ive’s return to the consumer technology industry - he is known for his Apple product designs, especially its smartphones.
The designer left Apple in 2019 and has not collaborated with the company since, but the recent acquisition marks Ive’s new partnership with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
Considering how widely used AI is, Altman believes that a new kind of hardware is needed to use AI to its fullest potential.
The AI company is paying $5 billion in equity for io. The total sum of $6.5 billion comes from last year’s partnership between the two companies, when OpenAI obtained a 23% stake in io.
The deal should be finished this summer with OpenAI getting a team of 55 hardware engineers, software developers, and manufacturing specialists from io.
Both Ive and Altman already have ideas about their first AI device, which could be released in 2026.
Ive co-founded io last year with Sott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan, all of whom worked at Apple. The company planned to create, engineer, and manufacture products for the AI-driven age. Now, the team will work on the same goal together with OpenAI.
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