Apple has acquired Invrs.io, a small AI-guided photonics and optical research company. It is one of those purchases that almost goes unnoticed, but that reveals a lot about where Apple is aiming in the hardware and AI race. Below these lines we tell you all the details.
What has happened. According to a notification published by the European Commission, Apple announced in October 2025 that it was acquiring certain assets of Invrs.io LLC and hiring its only employee and founder, Martin Schubert. The information was made public this week, after the regulatory waiting period of four months, according to counted MacRumors.
Who is Schubert and what he did. Schubert founded Invrs.io in 2023 after spending more than a decade working on advanced display, chip and optics technologies at companies including Google, Alphabet, X and Meta. According to your LinkedIn profileaccumulates nearly a hundred patents. At Invrs.io his goal was to develop AI-guided design tools focused on optics and photonics, with direct applications in augmented and virtual reality, data centers and autonomous vehicles.
The company, according to its page on GitHubbuilt open source frameworks for photonics research, with standardized simulations and a public ranking to compare design results.
Why does this matter? Photonics is the science that studies how to generate, control and detect photons, that is, light particles. In practical terms, it is the basis for optical components such as cameras, sensors, displays, LiDAR scanners, and lenses for mixed reality devices. Apple has been integrating this type of technology into its products for years, from the iPhone’s camera system to the Apple Vision Pro. Bringing in someone specialized in designing those components with the help of AI allows you to speed up that process and do it with greater precision.
The Apple pattern. This acquisition fits perfectly into Apple’s usual way of moving: small, silent purchases highly oriented toward specific capabilities, generally months before introducing a new product. In January of this year it bought Q.aian Israeli AI startup applied to audio, in what is considered its second largest historical acquisition with nearly $2 billion. Invrs.io is much more modest in size (it literally has one person in charge), but it gives us small clues as to how the company’s movements regarding its products will be in the following years.
The hardware that accompanies AI. Although we are now witnessing a great technological battle to see who launches the most powerful AI model, there is a race in the background that will decide who stays on top, and that race involves hardware. Specifically, the hardware that AI will use to perceive the physical world: sensors, lenses, optical systems, computer vision technology, etc.
Google now has Nano Bananaa model with which it works so that AI can generate images with knowledge of the real world. Apple, with moves like this, could bet on integrating ultra-precise optics into its wearables and future devices. They are different strategies, but with a common objective: to be the eyes of the AI.
And now what. Apple has not confirmed which projects Schubert will work on internally, something completely common for the company. But everything indicates that the company will intend with this purchase to improve the optical components of future models of the Apple Vision Pro, the iPhone or devices yet to be announced.
Cover image | Junseong Lee and Xataka
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