OpenAI has officially announced the acquisition of Global Illumination, a New York-based digital product company. The company is the creator of the early-access sandbox game for Apple Macs, named Sky. This marks OpenAI’s first public acquisition.

In a statement, OpenAI confirmed that the entire team from Global Illumination would be joining them. The new members will be integrated into OpenAI’s efforts to work on core products, including ChatGPT.

Who is Global Illumination?

Founded in 2021, Global Illumination was established by Thomas Layton, Andrew McCollum, and Taylor Gordon. The company’s team members have previous experience at prominent technology and entertainment firms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Pixar, and Riot Games. The startup was backed by venture capital firms including Paradigm, Benchmark, and Index Ventures.

The company’s primary product was Sky, a social creation application designed for macOS. The app allowed users to collaboratively build and explore real-time 3D worlds. Following the acquisition by OpenAI, the game Sky is set to be shut down.

The Team’s Transition to OpenAI

The entire staff from Global Illumination has transitioned to become part of the OpenAI team. OpenAI’s announcement highlighted that the team had previously designed a wide range of products and had also made contributions to open-source communities in the technology sector.

The team from Global Illumination will apply their expertise to the development of OpenAI’s primary offerings. The acquisition brings talent with a background in building creative digital tools and large-scale systems to the artificial intelligence research and deployment company.

Source: https://wccftech.com/openai-acquires-the-company-behind-the-new-apple-mac-app-sky/