OpenAI Acquires Digital Studio Global Illumination
OpenAI has digital products and design startup Global Illumination for an undisclosed sum, its first acquisition ever. Global Illumination is best known for creating the Minecraft-style open-source video game Biomes, seen above.
Global Illumination OpenAI
Global Illumination expertise could help OpenAI explore emerging areas like AI-generated media, entertainment, and culture. The startup’s founders include Thomas Dimson, who used to be Instagram’s director of engineering and helped build its discovery algorithms and features like Explore, Stories, and IGTV. As AI development accelerates, acquisitions of niche startups may prove an efficient way for OpenAI to bolster its ranks. The deal kicks off OpenAI’s next chapter as it evolves from a pure research shop into a full-fledged technology product player.
“The entire team has joined OpenAI to work on our core products including ChatGPT. Global Illumination is a company that has been leveraging AI to build creative tools, infrastructure, and digital experiences,” OpenAI explained in a blog post. “We’re very excited for the impact they’ll have here at OpenAI.”
OpenAI has plenty of projects that might benefit from the Global Illumination team. For instance, the new Superalignment group is working on better controlling advanced AI, while a couple of new journalism-based AI projects could be better with creative tools. The same goes for the Custom Instructions feature that may presage a fully personalized ChatGPT assistant.
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