Openai announced its first public acquisition for almost seven years of its history. The company acquired a startup Global Illumination, which is based in New York and specializes in the use of artificial intelligence to develop creative instruments, infrastructure and digital interaction.
The terms of the transaction remain confidential.
“The Global Illumination team joined us to work on key products, including ChatGPT”- reported The company is in its blog.
Global Illumination was founded by Thomas Dimson, Taylor Gordon and Joey Flynn and actively participated in various projects since its founding in 2021. The startup team received support from Paradigm, Benchmark and Slow venture funds and took part in the development of products for companies such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Pixar and Riot Games. >
In particular, Thomas Dimson, who worked as a technical director on Instagram, played a key role in the development of the platform detection algorithms. He participated in the creation of the commands responsible for the Explore tab on Instagram, the rating of tape and stories, IGTV and overall data processing.
One of the recent Global Illumination projects was the game Biomes, similar to Minecraft. However, the future of this game remains uncertain, probably the team will focus on less entertainment areas of work in Openai.
Openai previously avoided active absorptions of other companies, but thanks to the support of Microsoft and large venture funds, it has been investing in developing companies and organizations operating in the field of artificial intelligence for several years.
Despite the popularity of ChatGPT, according to The Information, Openai spent more than $ 540 million on the development of a chatbot last year, including the costs of attracting experienced specialists from other companies, including Google.
Over the past year, Openai received an income of $ 30 million. However, SAM Altman CEO told investors about the company’s intention to increase this figure to $ 200 million this year and to 1 billion in the following.