Highlights:

  • OpenAI announced that its local team will collaborate with local academic institutions, the Japanese government, and business sector clients.
  • According to OpenAI, the modified model can complete some jobs up to three times quicker than the original version.

OpenAI plans a new office in Tokyo and is working on launching a version of GPT-4, configured explicitly for processing Japanese-language text.

The facility is the company’s third overseas headquarters, announced recently. Last year, OpenAI commenced office branches in Dublin and London. The artificial intelligence development may open more overseas operations to further broaden its market reach.

Tadao Nagasaki, the former head of Amazon Web Services Inc.’s Japanese business branch, will oversee OpenAI’s new Tokyo base. At a press conference, Nagasaki revealed that the AI developer intends to hire 10 to 20 locals before the end of the year. According to OpenAI, these employees’ primary responsibilities will be “global affairs, go-to-market, communications, operations, and other functions.”

The office might eventually aid the company’s attempts to develop new products. OpenAI announced that its local team will collaborate with local research institutions, the Japanese government, and business sector clients. This suggests that OpenAI might collaborate on model development efforts with Japanese universities.

The company unveiled a new GPT-4 version tailored for the Japanese language along with the news of the new office. According to OpenAI, the modified model can complete some jobs up to three times quicker than the original version. It also does a better job of summarizing and translating text written in Japanese.

Several early users of the model, including the creator of Speak, one of Japan’s most well-known language learning applications, can access it due to OpenAI. Speak is now able to provide explanations for customers up to 2.8 times faster than it did previously, all because of the modified version of GPT-4. The app’s operator also decreased its inference expenses.

OpenAI intends to release the upgraded GPT-4 version for the users in the upcoming months. It will be available through the business’s application programming interface, which enables enterprises to incorporate its AI models into their unique software.

Other than Speak, several other Japanese organizations use OpenAI’s commercial products. The AI developer revealed recently that the largest e-commerce companies in Japan, Rakuten Group Inc., and Toyota Motor Corp., are two clients utilizing ChatGPT’s enterprise version. Yokosuka, a city in central Japan, and 21 other cities, including Tokyo, have joined forces to exchange ChatGPT best practices.

Last June, OpenAI inaugurated its first international office in London. The company said at the time that members of its local team will engage with legislators in addition to working on engineering and research projects. A few months later, OpenAI opened a hub in Dublin to help with its trust, safety, and cybersecurity activities.