It is rumored that Apple’s former design director discussed building AI hardware with OpenAI CEO, and Masayoshi Son was also involved.

According to reports on Tuesday Eastern Time, former Apple design director Jony Ive and Sam Altman, CEO of the American artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, have been discussing the creation of a new artificial intelligence hardware device.

It's unclear what the device is and whether they decided to build it, but the two men have been discussing what new hardware in the era of artificial intelligence might look like, the report said.

According to the report, Japan’s SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son also participated in some discussions, but it is unclear whether he will continue to participate.

OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reporters were unable to contact relevant people for comment.

Ive was a close creative partner of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He spent more than 20 years at Apple, leading the design of the candy-colored iMac and designing the iPhone, helping the company rise from near-death in the 1990s.

Ive left Apple in 2019 and subsequently co-founded the design company LoveFrom with designer Marc Newson. The company describes itself as a "creative collective" and counts Airbnb and Ferrari among its clients.

OpenAI is the parent company of the popular chatbot ChatGPT. The company has been hugely successful and has gotten companies like Microsoft and Alphabet to invest billions in the technology.