SoftBank-OpenAI to Establish Japanese Joint Venture... Developing Generative AI for Enterprises

SoftBank Group and ChatGPT developer OpenAI have decided to create a joint venture to develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprises.

Yonhap News

According to Japanese media including Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 3rd, Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank Group, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced at a Tokyo event attended by about 500 Japanese companies that they will establish a joint venture.

The company will be named 'SB OpenAI Japan,' with a new intermediate holding company under SoftBank Group and OpenAI each investing 50%.

The joint venture will develop an enterprise AI called 'Crystal Intelligence.' This AI service will collect data such as human resources and marketing for each company to support automation of tasks like customer service and document creation, as well as decision-making.

The service is planned to be first introduced by SoftBank Group subsidiaries, and an annual fee of 450 billion yen (approximately 4.2477 trillion KRW) will be paid to OpenAI.

Chairman Son stated, "We will launch the world's first cutting-edge AI for large enterprises in Japan," adding, "We will create advanced intelligence within companies." CEO Altman also said, "We will expand globally starting from Japan."

The two companies have continued AI-related collaborations, including creating the AI joint venture Stargate together with Oracle. It is also reported that SoftBank Group is considering a direct investment of $15 billion to $25 billion (approximately 21.9 trillion to 36.6 trillion KRW) in OpenAI.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.