OpenAI Expands In Asia With Kakao And SoftBank Partnerships

OpenAI has partnered with South Korean tech giant Kakao, known for its widely used KakaoTalk messaging platform. This collaboration will incorporate ChatGPT features into KakaoTalk while simultaneously providing OpenAI with crucial training and user interaction data. This announcement follows closely on the heels of SoftBank’s recent commitment of $3 billion to implement OpenAI technologies throughout its diverse business operations in Japan.

The agreement with Kakao will focus on three key initiatives. The first involves creating a Korean-language assistant akin to Siri or Google Assistant, leveraging OpenAI’s technology. The second initiative will provide Kakao employees access to ChatGPT Enterprise for enhanced workflow efficiency, and the third aligns with the integration of ChatGPT into KakaoTalk.

Similarly, the deal with SoftBank aims to develop an enterprise-level AI dubbed “Cristal intelligence.” This system will securely link the diverse data and systems of individual businesses in a manner tailored specifically to each organization, as outlined in the official announcement. Additionally, SoftBank has pledged to invest $3 billion yearly to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise across its various subsidiaries and to implement Cristal intelligence on a large scale.

“Korea is an impressive market,” stated OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a joint press conference with Kakao CEO Shina Chung. He noted that AI adoption in Korea is advanced, highlighting the conducive environment across sectors like energy, semiconductors, and the internet for AI applications. This market is not only significant for OpenAI but also rapidly evolving. As an added advantage, these partnerships open up new avenues for obtaining Korean and Japanese-language data essential for training its expansive language models.

This is not the first collaboration between OpenAI and SoftBank. Earlier this year, they announced the ambitious Stargate Project, which plans to invest up to $500 billion over the next four years into establishing AI data centers and power generation facilities to support OpenAI’s ongoing expansion strategy. However, the escalating dominance of China’s DeepSeek AI app, which matches the performance of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3 models at a significantly lower cost, could jeopardize this initiative.