Apple acquires startup specializing in AI-powered light and optics design tools

Source: 9to5Mac

According to a new filing with the European Union, Apple has acquired the assets of invrs.io and hired its founder, who is the only employee. Here are the details.

Apple acquires a one-person AI startup

As spotted by MacRumors, Apple informed the European Union last October that it would “acquire certain assets from and hire the sole equityholder and employee of invrs.io LLC,” adding that the company “develops open-source frameworks for photonics research, providing standardized simulation challenges and a public leaderboard for benchmarking and comparing design results.”

The company’s founder, Martin Schubert, worked as a Research Scientist at Meta before leaving to found invrs.io, and has spent more than a decade working on advanced display, chip, and optical technologies at Google and Micron.

Invrs.io’s GitHub page says that it “aims to advance AI‑guided design, focusing initially on optics—a space critical for components in AR/VR, datacenters, autonomous vehicles, and beyond.” The page also notes that invrs.io is “developing an ecosystem that is accessible to everyone from AI scientists to optimization researchers and optics designers,” and lists multiple open‑source projects, including standardized design challenges, optimization tools, and a public leaderboard.

It is not immediately clear what Apple plans to do with these tools or how Schubert will be deployed internally. Photonics (the science of designing components that manipulate light) is relevant to a wide range of Apple products, including camera systems, displays, sensors, and LiDAR scanners.

Invrs.io’s tools, which use AI to simulate and optimize how light behaves in complex structures, could help Apple design such components for future iPhones, iPads, Apple Vision Pro models, and upcoming unannounced products.