SoftBank and OpenAI Launch SB OpenAI Japan to Boost AI Collaboration

CIOTechOutlook Team | Tuesday, 04 February 2025, 02:12 IST

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Japanese technology leader SoftBank Group and OpenAI enhanced their AI collaboration by establishing a jointly owned company named SB OpenAI Japan, where both parties hold equal shares. SoftBank's Masayoshi Son and OpenAI's Sam Altman participated in an event in Tokyo, promoting their partnership and encouraging Japanese firms to get involved.

Son, grasping a gleaming blue crystal ball as a symbolic object, stated that its AI service Cristal could assist companies with planning, marketing, emails, and analyzing legacy source codes.

Cristal will initially launch within Son's own SoftBank Group firms, such as Arm, a semiconductor and software entity, and PayPay, a digital payment platform. SoftBank announced its intention to invest $3 billion annually to incorporate Cristal into its businesses.

“This will be super-intelligence for the company. I’m so excited,” Son told reporters and other participants at the Transforming Business through AI event.

Altman discussed the newly revealed “deep research,” which enables ChatGPT to perform more complex tasks, such as creating reports by searching the web and locating thousands of sources much faster than a human employee. He mentioned that extensive research will be accessible in Japan in the Japanese language.

“This partnership with SoftBank will accelerate our vision for bringing transformative AI to some of the world’s most influential companies, starting with Japan,” said Altman.

SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle are involved in the Stargate initiative backed by President Donald Trump, which is investing as much as $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the U.S.

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