In one of the most unexpected pivots in tech history, Midjourney has officially launched a medical division (“Midjourney Medical”) and unveiled its first hardware product: a full-body ultrasonic scanner.

Unveiled via livestream, the device—internally code-named “Orb”—is designed to perform a comprehensive, non-invasive full-body scan in under 60 seconds. In its announcement, Midjourney acknowledged the drastic departure from text-to-image AI, stating the company reached a point of asking itself, “What do we want to become?”

The Technology: “Ultrasound-on-a-Chip”

The technical foundation of the scanner relies on hardware and software that have nothing to do with generative AI. Instead of massive magnets (like an MRI) or ionizing radiation (like a CT scan), the device uses sound waves and water.

• The Silicon Foundation: Midjourney quietly signed an exclusive licensing and co-development deal back in late 2025 with Butterfly Network, a company specializing in semiconductor-based ultrasound. Midjourney paid $15 million upfront, with $10 million in annual licensing fees to secure the rights to their CMOS ultrasound-on-chip technology.
• The Transducer Ring: The scanner features a ring configuration packed with 8,960 individual micro-transducers (though the company conceptually describes it as half a million sand-grain-sized squares). Each square can both emit ultrasonic waves and record the echoing ripples bouncing off internal organs.
• The Data Deluge: Capturing this much raw acoustic feedback requires staggering computing power. The hardware processes 17 gigabytes of data per second, and it takes 40GB of raw data to reconstruct just a single cross-sectional slice of the body.

The Experience: The “Midjourney Spa” Concept

Midjourney is bypassing traditional, sterile radiology departments in favor of a hospitality-first ecosystem.

The company is launching its first physical brick-and-mortar location—the Midjourney Spa—near Union Square in San Francisco, slated to open by the end of 2027. The facility will house 10 of these scanners alongside saunas, hot tubs, and cold plunges.

Because the machine uses zero radiation, Midjourney frames it as a casual consumer check-in rather than a dreaded medical appointment.

Ambitious Claims vs. Regulatory Realities

Midjourney CEO David Holz claims that a prototype version of the scanner is roughly 10 times cheaper to build and 60 times faster to operate than a traditional MRI machine. Holz boldly stated that fewer than 12 of these machines operating at peak speed could perform more full-body scans than every traditional MRI machine on Earth combined. The ultimate corporate objective is to build a fleet of 50,000 scanners capable of delivering a billion scans a month globally.

The Scrutiny Moat: Medical hardware experts note a massive gap between a functioning physical prototype and an FDA-cleared diagnostic medical device. Midjourney currently has zero track record in clinical settings, and independent peer reviews have yet to verify the sub-millimeter tissue resolution claims.

The project is led by Ahmad Abbas, whom Midjourney hired as Head of Hardware after his stint working on Apple’s Vision Pro. By expanding into the physical world, Midjourney joins a broader trend of top-tier AI labs building physical infrastructure moats—proving that while software models can be easily copied, controlling proprietary, real-world data collection pipelines creates a defensive barrier competitors cannot easily replicate.