New hub will be OpenAI’s first Asian and fourth worldwide office.
OpenAI is growing in Japan. They have opened a new office and plan to make a GPT-4 model that works best with Japanese.
There are several important reasons for the move. It shows that the company sees a chance to do business in the country and that OpenAI will probably need to translate its technology into more languages as it grows. In a more practical sense, having feet on the ground is important for OpenAI to understand and change the currents that work against it as the pros and cons of AI become clearer to governments, their policymakers, and the people as a whole.
Even though OpenAI is a well-known company, it will have rivals. SoftBank also wants to build on the current trend for businesses to use AI. In November, they launched SB Intuitions, which aims to create large language models (LLMs) and creative AI services that are originally in Japanese.
Microsoft backs the company that makes ChatGPT, which only has 1,200 workers around the world. This is a very small number when you consider that it’s worth about $80 billion and has a lot of people interested in working for it. These days, it’s mostly about thinking about how to grow to meet that need. Last year, it opened its first office outside of the United States in London. A few months later, it opened its first office in the European Union (EU) in Dublin. Tokyo will be OpenAI’s first office in Asia and its fourth office in the world, following its main office in San Francisco.
Its CEO, Sam Altman, said that Japan’s “rich history of people and technology coming together to do more” was one reason for establishing an official presence in the area. But more importantly, OpenAI’s attempts to grow around the world so far have been well-planned and timed.
The U.K. is a big hub for AI talent, and the EU is currently in charge of setting AI regulations. Japan has been one of the biggest places to develop and use humanoid robots and other AI-powered hardware. At the end of Altman’s world tour last year, he met with Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and talked about OpenAI’s plans to open an office in the country. Japan is currently chair of the G7 and head of the Hiroshima AI Process. This is an effort to improve AI safety by making AI control better.
It is interesting that OpenAI chose to run the new hub. Tadao Nagasaki will lead OpenAI Japan. He comes to the company after 12 years as the head of Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing business in the area. In other words, the primary objective of this new expansion is to enhance OpenAI’s reputation and attract more business from various industries.
Taking risks
Nagasaki will be in charge of building a team in Japan so that OpenAI can do even more business in the country as head of OpenAI Japan. OpenAI already has customers like Daikin (an industrial company best known for making air conditioners), Rakuten, and Toyota that use the enterprise-focused version of ChatGPT. OpenAI says that this version has more privacy, data analysis, and customization options than the standard consumer-grade ChatGPT.
Local governments in Japan are also using ChatGPT to “improve the efficiency of public services,” according to OpenAI.
ChatGPT has been able to speak many languages, including Japanese, for a long time. But making the most recent version of the GPT LLM work better with Japanese will help it understand the language’s subtleties better, including how to understand Japanese culture. This should make it more useful, especially in business settings like customer service and content creation.
OpenAI also says that its custom model has better speed than its predecessor. This means that it should work faster and cost less.
Some local businesses are already getting early access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 custom model. More companies will be able to get access through the OpenAI API “in the coming months.”
