OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s Firm ‘Ive Products Inc.’ to Develop AI Hardware
The partnership between Sam Altman and Jony Ive in merging ChatGPT’s AI technology with new hardware products is now under full steam.
OpenAI announced today that it has acquired hardware startup Ive Products Inc., the shop co-founded by iconic Apple design alum Jony Ive, in a deal reportedly worth up to $6.5 billion — yes, that’s billion with a B. For the record, OpenAI has been keen to publicly identify the startup only as “Ive Products Inc.”
The original blog post in which OpenAI announced the acquisition was quietly taken off OpenAI’s site after a trademark dispute by another company called IO, a hearing devices startup spun out of Google’s experimental lab, X (previously known as Google X).
Now, the announcement has come again, this time with an updated note:
We’re pleased to announce Ive Products Inc. is now part of OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom are not merging with OpenAI and have no financial interest in the company at this time, but they have taken on significantly broader design and creative duties there, OpenAI told us.
OpenAI had previously announced the deal — which included an audacious plan to create custom AI chips — in a cheeky video on social media that starred CEO Sam Altman alongside Jony Ive. But because of the lawsuit, that video was taken down from the OpenAI site and from every social media platform, and won’t be reposted.
The updated blog post adds:
“Designers, machinists, operators and other departments at Apple that worked on products will become part of the group at OpenAI,” the company said, adding, “The Ive Products team will (be) working more directly across the largest teams at OpenAI.”
