India, May 21 -- OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it's acquiring io, the AI hardware startup founded by legendary designer Jony Ive, in an all-equity deal valued at around $6.4 billion.

Ive will take on "deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io," the company said in a statement. While io is set to become part of OpenAI, Ive's independent design firm, LoveFrom, will remain separate and continue its own operations.

"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," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive shared in a co-authored blog post.

Published by HT Digital Content Services ...