By Björn Jeffery, SvD Tech Brief. Published in Svenska Dagbladet on 21 May 2025.
The world’s hottest AI company is recruiting the man who designed the iPhone. Price tag: 62 billion kronor. SvD’s tech analyst Björn Jeffery answers three questions about what the deal means.
OpenAI has acquired a startup company founded by Apple’s former chief design officer, Jonathan “Jony” Ive. The company is highly secretive but is said to be working on a new type of hardware for AI services. Ive is best known as the designer behind the iPhone and several other Apple products.
The company, called IO, is valued at around 62 billion kronor in the deal. The two entities will now be merged to create a new hardware division at OpenAI, which will be led by Swede Peter Welinder.
In a video, Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman describe having known each other for several years and having worked together on questions about how AI might be used in the future. OpenAI was already a part-owner of IO. Its decision to now acquire the entire company most likely signals two things: rapidly intensifying competition and a promising — still secret — product.
The timing is striking. As recently as Tuesday, Google held its annual developer conference, which shares a name with Ive’s company — IO. There, Google unveiled a cavalcade of AI services designed to show the world that the search giant is one of the leaders in the field. And right in the middle of that conference, Altman acquires a company with the same name. It is a pointed jab from Altman at Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai. The competition is intensifying.
The deal also most likely means that the physical product Ive has been working on is showing genuine promise and could become something sold to the general public — as early as next year, OpenAI indicates in its video.
Bringing Jony Ive into OpenAI is the most significant design hire that can be made anywhere in the world. The fact that the person behind the iPhone is now building a new kind of device for AI will in all likelihood force every other major AI company to plan for something equivalent.
Early attempts at dedicated AI hardware have so far failed. The most prominent was the Humane AI pin — a brooch-like device through which you could talk to an AI assistant. The Humane team also had an Apple background but could not produce a product that was good enough. In February this year the business was shut down and the remnants sold to HP.
The combination of OpenAI with Sam Altman at the helm together with Jony Ive is a powerful offensive move. Expect Google and Apple to assemble equivalent teams where hardware and AI are tightly integrated — if they have not already.
