OpenAI is expanding into Japan, today announcing a new hub in Tokyo and planning a GPT-4 model optimized specifically for the Japanese language.
The ChatGPT maker opened its first international office in London last year, followed a few months later by its first European Union (EU) office in Dublin. Tokyo will be OpenAI’s first office in Asia and fourth worldwide (including its headquarters in San Francisco). CEO Sam Altman cites Japan’s “rich history of people and technology working together to achieve more” as one of the reasons for establishing a formal presence in the region.
OpenAI’s global expansion efforts have so far been strategic in nature, as the UK is a key hub for AI talent while the EU is currently driving the AI regulatory agenda. Japan is now also taking a prominent position in the AI revolution, most recently as G7 Chair and President of the G7 Hiroshima AI Process, an initiative focused on AI governance and promoting safe and trustworthy AI.
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OpenAI Japan is led by Tadao Nagasaki, who joins the company from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he led Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary in the region for the past 12 years. As president of OpenAI Japan, Nagasaki will be tasked with building a local team on the ground and doubling OpenAI’s recent growth in Japan, which has seen the company gain customers such as Daikin, Rakuten and Toyota, which are the enterprise-focused incarnation of ChatGPT Leverage additional privacy, data analytics and customization options in addition to the standard consumer ChatGPT.
OpenAI says ChatGPT is also already being used by local governments to “improve the efficiency of public services in Japan.”
GPT-4 adapted for Japanese Photo credits: OpenAI
While ChatGPT has long been familiar with multiple languages, including Japanese, the optimization of the latest version of the underlying GPT-LLM (Large Language Model) for Japanese will lead to a better understanding of the nuances within the Japanese language, including cultural understanding, which they improve should be particularly effective in business environments such as customer service and content creation. OpenAI also says the custom model has improved performance, meaning it should be faster and more cost-effective than its predecessor.
Currently, OpenAI is providing early access to the GPT-4 custom model to some local companies, with access gradually opening up through the OpenAI API.in the following months.”