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OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a startup developing artificial intelligence technology for smartphone cameras, in a transaction valuing the company at more than $300 million, according to people familiar with the matter cited by The Wall Street Journal. The deal gives OpenAI another piece of technology that could become important as the company expands beyond software and into consumer hardware.

Glass Imaging was valued at roughly $100 million in a funding round last year, meaning OpenAI’s reported purchase price represents more than a threefold increase in the startup’s valuation. Neither OpenAI nor Glass Imaging has publicly disclosed the financial terms of the transaction.

Founded in 2019 by former Apple engineers Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, Glass Imaging was created around a simple problem: smartphone cameras have physical limitations that software alone has struggled to overcome. The company developed AI-powered imaging technology designed to produce photographs with quality closer to what consumers would expect from much larger dedicated cameras.

Attar and Bishop previously worked at Apple and were involved with the development of the company’s Portrait Mode technology. Their experience gives Glass Imaging a particularly relevant background as OpenAI attempts to recruit and acquire talent capable of translating artificial intelligence into consumer products.

Glass Imaging’s technology uses neural networks to process raw camera data and account for the characteristics of individual camera systems. Rather than relying exclusively on traditional image-processing techniques, the technology is designed to use AI to compensate for the limited size of smartphone camera sensors and optics.

The startup had previously raised approximately $30 million from investors including GV, Alphabet’s venture capital arm, and Insight Partners. Its technology has also made its way into commercial devices, with its zoom-imaging technology used in smartphones from Chinese manufacturer Honor.

David Stark, general partner at Ground Up Ventures, said on LinkedIn that his firm was Glass Imaging’s first investor. Stark welcomed the acquisition, saying he was “excited to see how much more they will accomplish inside of OpenAI,” providing a rare glimpse of investor enthusiasm surrounding the transaction.

The acquisition fits into a much larger hardware strategy at OpenAI. The company has been working with former Apple design chief Jony Ive and acquired his hardware company, io Products, in a $6.5 billion stock transaction last year. OpenAI has reportedly been developing new consumer devices intended to create a different way for people to interact with AI.

Adding advanced camera technology could give OpenAI another building block for those devices. Cameras could allow future AI hardware to understand a user’s surroundings, capture visual information, communicate through images or provide real-time assistance. OpenAI has not disclosed exactly how Glass Imaging’s technology will be incorporated into its product roadmap, however, so any connection to a specific upcoming device remains speculative.

The acquisition also demonstrates how OpenAI’s ambitions are expanding beyond the development of increasingly capable AI models. As the company competes with technology giants across software, hardware and consumer services, acquiring specialized startups could allow it to build products around AI rather than simply putting AI inside existing products. Glass Imaging gives OpenAI expertise in one of the most important sensors in modern consumer electronics.

For Glass Imaging, joining OpenAI could provide resources far beyond what a small independent startup could access on its own. For OpenAI, the more than $300 million purchase represents another bet that the future of AI will involve machines that can see, understand and interact with the physical world. With former Apple imaging engineers now joining its hardware ambitions, OpenAI appears increasingly determined to make the camera—and potentially the device surrounding it—a central part of its next generation of consumer technology.