OpenAI closes deal with Jony Ive's io.
OpenAI has officially closed its nearly $6.5 billion acquisition of io, the hardware startup co-founded by famous Apple designer Jony Ive, the company announced Wednesday. But it was careful to only refer to the startup as io Products Inc.
OpenAI originally announced the deal, and its plans to create dedicated AI hardware, with a viral video featuring its CEO Sam Altman and Ive. The video has since been scrubbed from its website and social media channels due to a trademark lawsuit from Iyo, the hearing device startup spun out of Google's moonshot factory.
The blog post initially announcing the acquisition was also scrubbed from OpenAI's website due to the lawsuit, but it's now back up. 'The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,' the blog post states.
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