Midjourney's Medical Imaging Ambition
AI Company Midjourney Unveils Full-Body Ultrasound Scanner, Targeting 50,000 Units and Spa Launch
Anonymous
Key Points
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Midjourney’s planned “Midjourney Spa” concept includes a spa-like environment where patients would “partially immerse” themselves in water during scanning, alongside saunas, hot tubs, cold plunges, and a gym; the report also says pricing is not yet public and that CEO David Holz plans to seek FDA approval over time so the device can handle “thousands of health uses.”
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Beyond the 50,000-unit deployment plan, Midjourney’s announcement and coverage cite extremely large utilization targets—aiming for about “a billion full-body scans every month” and placing the 50,000-scanner rollout in the context of “the next six years.”
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Detailed technical figures in one report describe the scanner hardware as using 358,000 transducers arranged into panels that form a ring, with transducers described as acting as both “speakers and microphones” for sending and receiving signals; the same coverage also repeats Midjourney’s claim that “less than a dozen” such ring devices could outperform “all of the MRI machines on Earth combined.”
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Midjourney’s expansion is framed as part of a broader product roadmap: one report says the company lists four additional hardware projects and four software projects as “TBA” on its website, indicating the scanner is only the first entry into a wider hardware/software push.
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For hardware leadership, one report says Midjourney hired Ahmad Abbas as “Head of Hardware” in 2024 and notes that he previously worked on Apple’s Vision Pro project.
Midjourney, the company best known for turning text prompts into AI images, unveiled its first hardware product on June 17: a full-body ultrasonic scanner it calls the "Midjourney Scanner." The device scans an entire body in under 60 seconds, uses no radiation or strong magnets, and is claimed to produce image quality comparable to an MRI, according to Let's Data Science and Shacknews.
The announcement comes with sweeping ambitions. Midjourney plans to deploy 50,000 units over six years and eventually perform one billion full-body scans per month, Let's Data Science reported. CEO David Holz called it "the first new whole-body medical imaging modality in 50 years," according to Lapaas Voice.
How the Scanner Works: 358,000 Sensors in a Ring
The device uses 40 panels arranged in a 70 cm ring. Each panel holds 8,960 tiny ultrasound sensors, adding up to 358,000 sensors total, according to Shacknews. These sensors act as both speakers and microphones — they send sound waves into the body and listen for what bounces back.
To get a clear image, the patient is lowered into water at about 2 inches per second. Water carries sound waves better than air. The system captures 17 gigabytes of data every second, and reconstructing a single body slice requires roughly 40 GB of raw data, Lapaas Voice reported. Processing currently takes 21 servers running at 2 petaflops of computing power.
The Butterfly Network Deal That Made This Possible
Midjourney did not build its sensor technology from scratch. On November 17, 2025, the company signed a five-year exclusive deal with Butterfly Network, a medical imaging firm. Butterfly makes "ultrasound-on-chip" technology — thousands of sensors printed onto a standard computer chip. That is the core of the Midjourney Scanner, according to Head Topics.
The deal cost Midjourney $15 million upfront, plus $10 million in annual licensing fees. It also includes $9 million in milestone payments and a revenue-sharing agreement on each scan or unit sold, according to Let's Data Science. For Butterfly Network, it was a much-needed cash injection without giving up equity in the company.
A Spa in San Francisco, Not a Hospital
Midjourney is not pitching this as a clinical tool — at least not yet. The company plans to open a flagship "Midjourney Spa" in San Francisco's Union Square in late 2027. The 25,000-square-foot, four-story facility will house 9 to 10 scanners alongside saunas, hot tubs, cold plunges, and a gym, according to Lapaas Voice. Architects behind Iceland's Blue Lagoon are reportedly involved in the design.
The regulatory strategy is deliberate. To avoid a lengthy FDA approval process, Midjourney will first market the device for "body composition" tracking — measuring muscle and fat — which faces lower scrutiny. Holz says he plans to seek FDA clearance over time so the device can eventually handle "thousands of health uses," Let's Data Science reported. Pricing has not been announced.
Big Claims, Unverified Results, and a Privacy Question
Holz said that fewer than a dozen of these machines, running at full speed, could perform more full-body scans than all the MRI machines on Earth combined, according to Shacknews. But none of the key performance figures — image quality, scan speed, resolution down to 0.5 mm — have been independently verified. Current prototypes still take around 20 minutes to process a scan due to bandwidth and computing bottlenecks, Value The Markets noted.
There are also trust questions. Midjourney has faced past controversy over data scraping and copyright issues in its image business. Shacknews raised concerns about whether patients will be comfortable sharing sensitive biological data with an AI-focused company. The broader hardware push is just getting started: Midjourney's website lists four more hardware projects and four software projects listed simply as "TBA," according to Value The Markets.
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