Jony Ive confirms he’s engaged on a brand new machine with OpenAI

Jony Ive has confirmed that he’s working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on an AI {hardware} mission. The affirmation got here at this time as a part of a profile of Ive in The New York Occasions, almost a yr after the opportunity of a collaboration between Altman and the longtime Apple designer was first reported on.

There aren’t a whole lot of particulars on the mission. Ive reportedly met Altman by means of Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and the enterprise is being funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ firm. The Occasions experiences it might elevate $1 billion in funding by the top of the yr, however makes no point out of Masayoshi Son, the SoftBank CEO rumored final yr to have invested $1 billion within the mission.

The mission solely has 10 staff at the moment, however they embrace Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, two key individuals who labored with Ive on the iPhone. LoveFrom, Ive’s firm, is main the machine’s design, in response to the report. The group is reportedly now understanding of a 32,000-square-foot workplace constructing in San Francisco, a part of a $90 million strip of actual property that Ive has purchased up on single metropolis block.

As for the machine itself? The Occasions says that Ive and Altman mentioned “how generative AI made it attainable to create a brand new computing machine as a result of the expertise might do extra for customers than conventional software program” as a result of its potential to deal with sophisticated requests. Final yr it was rumored to be impressed by touchscreen expertise and the unique iPhone.

But it surely feels like few specifics are nailed down. LoveFrom cofounder Marc Newson instructed the Occasions that the AI product — and when it’ll come to market — are nonetheless being discovered.