Jony Ive has confirmed that he’s working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on an AI hardware project. The confirmation came today as part of a profile of Ive in The New York Times, nearly a year after the possibility of a collaboration between Altman and the longtime Apple designer was first reported on.
There aren’t a lot of details on the project. Ive reportedly met Altman through Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and the venture is being funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ company. The Times reports it could raise $1 billion in funding by the end of the year, but makes no mention of Masayoshi Son, the SoftBank CEO rumored last year to have invested $1 billion in the project.
The project only has 10 employees…