Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI try to boost $1 billion to construct the “iPhone of synthetic intelligence,” in keeping with a brand new report.

The article builds on earlier media objects about Ive brainstorming with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the undertaking.

Jony Ive and OpenAI search Softbank funding for main AI enterprise

OpenAI and Ive are speaking with Japanese monetary conglomerate Softbank about greater than $1 billion in funding for what they are saying would be the “iPhone of synthetic intelligence,” in keeping with a report in Monetary Instances.

The FT article mentioned Altman tapped Ive’s agency LoveFrom, which he based after leaving Apple in 2019, to work on the machine. It will likely be OpenAI’s first client machine.

For his half, Ive has been pretty busy since leaving Apple. Current information has seen him constructing his design agency, designing a crimson clown nostril for charity and revamping an extremely costly report participant.

Early brainstorming

Folks aware of the discussions thus far mentioned Altman and Ive first brainstormed what the machine would seem like in LoveFrom’s San Francisco studio.

However particulars about what the machine will do and the way it will look are scant at finest. The report mentioned this:

They hope to create a extra pure and intuitive consumer expertise for interacting with AI, in the way in which that the iPhone’s improvements in touchscreen computing unleashed the mass-market potential of the cellular web.

The method of figuring out a design or machine stays at an early stage with many alternative concepts on the desk, they mentioned.

Presumably greater than $1 billion in funding

SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son additionally bought concerned with talks. He’ll supply monetary backing. And he pitched involvement by Arm, a chipmaker through which Softbank holds a 90% stake.

OpenAI, LoveFrom and Softbank would all contribute expertise and know-how to the undertaking, sources mentioned.

The report famous, nevertheless, that no deal is in place. It may take months to achieve a proper announcement and years to see a chunk of {hardware}.

All three gamers within the talks declined to remark.