SoftBank and OpenAI Strengthen AI Partnership with SB OpenAI Japan
Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group and OpenAI have solidified their AI partnership with the establishment of SB OpenAI Japan, a 50-50 joint venture. The announcement was made at an event in Tokyo, where SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed their collaboration and invited Japanese companies to participate.
Cristal AI Service
Son showcased Cristal, an AI service that enables companies to streamline planning, marketing, email communication, and source code analysis. Cristal will initially be deployed within SoftBank Group companies, including Arm and PayPay. SoftBank plans to invest $3 billion annually to integrate Cristal across its businesses.
"This is super-intelligence for the company. I'm so excited," Son remarked at the event.
Deep Research Capabilities
Altman introduced OpenAI's recently announced "deep research" feature, which empowers ChatGPT to perform complex tasks like generating reports by scouring the web and compiling sources more efficiently than human researchers. Deep research will be available in Japan in the Japanese language.
"Our partnership with SoftBank will accelerate our vision of bringing transformative AI to some of the world's most influential companies, starting with Japan," Altman said.
Expanding Stargate Project
SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle are collaborating on the Stargate project, a government-backed initiative to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States. Son confirmed that Stargate will expand into Japan and other countries.
Competition from DeepSeek
The tech industry is abuzz over the announcement from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims to have developed highly capable AI at a low cost.