OpenAI expands to Japan with Tokyo office and Japanese-optimized GPT-4 model

OpenAI is expanding into Japan, announcing today a new Tokyo center and plans to optimize GPT-4 models specifically for Japanese.

The ChatGPT maker opened its first international office in London last year and its first European Union (EU) office in Dublin a few months later. Tokyo will represent OpenAI’s first office in Asia and fourth globally (including its San Francisco headquarters), with CEO Sam Altman highlighting Japan’s “long history of people and technology coming together to do more” as a key reason for its presence in One of the reasons for establishing a formal office in the region.

OpenAI’s global expansion efforts to date have been quite strategic, as the UK is a major hub for AI talent and the EU is currently driving an AI regulatory agenda. Japan, meanwhile, also occupies an important position in the AI ​​revolution, most recently as chair of the G7 and the G7 Hiroshima Process on AI, which revolves around AI governance and the promotion of safe and reliable AI.

The company’s choice of who will lead its new Japan operations is also noteworthy. OpenAI Japan will be led by Tadao Nagasaki, who worked at Amazon Web Services (AWS) before joining the company and has led Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary in the region for the past 12 years, so it’s clear that OpenAI The real target for this latest expansion is the enterprise segment.

Enterprising

As president of OpenAI Japan, Nagasaki will be responsible for building a local team there and doubling down on OpenAI’s recent growth in Japan, which has seen the company acquire customers including Daikin, Rakuten and Toyota who are using ChatGPT’s An enterprise-focused incarnation that offers additional privacy, data analysis, and customization options on top of standard consumer-grade ChatGPT.

OpenAI said local governments have also used ChatGPT to “improve the efficiency of Japan’s public services.”

GPT-4 is customized for Japanese Image Source: Open Artificial Intelligence

While ChatGPT has long been familiar with multiple languages, including Japanese, optimizing the latest version of the underlying GPT large language model (LLM) for Japanese will give it an enhanced understanding of the nuances in Japanese, including cultural understanding, which will make it Easier to understand. This is especially effective in business contexts such as customer service and content creation. OpenAI also says the custom model has improved performance, meaning it should perform faster and be more cost-effective than its predecessor.

Currently, OpenAI is opening the GPT-4 customized model to some local companies in advance, and gradually opening up access through the OpenAI API.”over the next few months. “