OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is allegedly in talks with Apple’s former Chief Design Officer, Jony Ive, on a possible collaboration to build a new AI device. According to The Information, citing two people close to the conversations, the two have been discussing what new hardware for the AI age could look like.
With the recent AI explosion, more smartphone manufacturers have been releasing devices that can run AI. This includes smartphones such as the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro which have a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) designed to accelerate machine learning and AI-related tasks and the recently unveiled iPhone 15 lineup which comes equipped with Apple’s Neural Engine enabling faster machine learning computations.
According to The Information, billionaire and CEO of the investment group Softbank, Masayoshi Son, is also in talks with Altman and Ive, however, it remains vague if he will go forward with the project.
OpenAI released ChatGPT last year which gained massive popularity and has since released other successful products such as DALL-E. Given OpenAI’s success as an AI software company, it is likely that a future AI hardware device by the company is possible.
Notably, Sam Altman has previously worked with a former Apple designer, Thomas Meyerhoffer, who designed the Worldcoin project’s scanning Orb.
However, the report is unclear on the type of device or even if the AI company will actually venture into this. We can only speculate the device (if it will be made) to be a smartphone given Ive’s work with the iPhone during his time at Apple.
