Apple's former design chief, Jony Ive, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been discussing building a new artificial intelligence (AI) hardware device, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear what the device would be or if they will decide to build it but the due have been discussing what new hardware for the AI age could look like, the report said.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has also been involved in some aspects of the conversation but it is unclear if he will remain involved, the report said.

OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Ive and LoveFrom could not be reached for comment.

Ive was a close creative collaborator with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He spent more than two decades at the tech giant and led the design of the candy-colored iMacs that helped Apple re-emerge from near death in the 1990s as well as the design of the iPhone.

Ive left Apple in 2019 and subsequently co-founded design firm LoveFrom with fellow designer Marc Newson. LoveFrom, which describes itself as a "creative collective", has clients such as Airbnb and Ferrari.

OpenAI, the parent company of the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT, has seen phenomenal success that has prompted companies such as Microsoft and Alphabet to pour billions of dollars into investing in the technology.

(Reporting by Evelyn Nikhila S in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)