Sam Nussey
TOKYO (Reuters) – Microsoft (NASDAQ:) backed artificial intelligence startup OpenAI made a business pitch in Japan on Monday, opening its first Asian office in Tokyo.
The startup, which has created a buzz among consumers since launching generative AI chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022, is looking to find new revenue streams globally.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and COO Brad Lightcap invited hundreds of executives from Fortune 500 companies in the US and UK to make business presentations this month, Reuters reports.
Last year, Altman said he was considering a post in Japan after meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The startup has also opened offices in London and Dublin.
Japan hopes to reap the benefits of AI as it seeks to compete with an increasingly assertive China, accelerate its shift to digital services and ease a growing labor shortage.
On Monday, OpenAI said it has its own model optimized for Japanese and that the Japanese business is led by Tadao Nagasaki, who was president of Amazon (NASDAQ:) Web Services in Japan.
Although the country is considered a technology laggard, local companies including telecoms SoftBank (TYO:) and NTT are investing in major language models.
Microsoft said last week it would invest $2.9 billion over two years in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Japan, part of a global wave of investment by US tech giants.