OpenAI Expands in Asia with Kakao Partnership, SoftBank Joint Venture

As competition in the AI space intensifies, OpenAI is making significant strides in Asia through key partnerships aimed at expanding its reach and enhancing its language capabilities. The company announced a strategic collaboration with Kakao, South Korea’s leading tech firm and operator of the popular KakaoTalk messaging app. This comes just a day after OpenAI revealed a $3 billion joint venture with SoftBank in Japan, solidifying its foothold in two of Asia's most influential tech markets.

These moves not only bring ChatGPT and other OpenAI technologies to millions of new users but also provide valuable opportunities for the company to train its AI on Asian languages and regional user behavior, an essential step in maintaining global competitiveness.

OpenAI and Kakao: Powering Korean AI Innovation

The partnership between OpenAI and Kakao will focus on three key projects:

• Kanana, a Korean-language AI assistant powered by OpenAI, designed to deliver tailored conversational experiences for Korean users.

• Integration of OpenAI’s technology into KakaoTalk, enhancing the messaging app’s capabilities with advanced AI features.

• Adoption of ChatGPT Enterprise within Kakao’s internal operations, boosting productivity and streamlining workflows for the company’s employees.

The announcement was made at an event in Seoul co-hosted by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Kakao CEO Shina Chung. Altman praised Korea’s rapid AI adoption, highlighting the country’s strengths across industries from semiconductors to internet technology. “Korea is a very impressive market. The adoption of AI in Korea is remarkably advanced....and it is a market that is extremely important to us and is growing rapidly,” Altman stated.

SoftBank Joint Venture: A $3B Investment in Japanese AI

Just one day before the Kakao announcement, SoftBank revealed a $3 billion annual investment to integrate OpenAI’s technology across its group companies. The two firms have also established SB OpenAI Japan, a joint venture aimed at developing AI solutions customized for Japanese enterprises.

SoftBank’s commitment includes deploying ChatGPT Enterprise, OpenAI’s API, and products like Operator, an AI agent capable of handling tasks such as vacation planning and restaurant reservations. The joint venture reflects SoftBank’s pivot from its earlier ambitions to develop its own Japanese-language large language models through SB Intuitions, a project whose status remains unclear.

Additionally, Arm, the U.K.-based chip designer acquired by SoftBank in 2016, will leverage OpenAI tools to enhance productivity. There are also reports that SoftBank is considering leading a $40 billion funding round for OpenAI, potentially valuing the company at $300 billion.

Expanding Language Capabilities in Response to DeepSeek

These strategic partnerships are particularly significant in the context of rising competition from DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm that has made waves in the U.S. with its cost-effective, high-performing reasoning models. DeepSeek’s success highlights the growing importance of non-English AI models and underscores the urgency for OpenAI to expand its multilingual capabilities.

By collaborating with Kakao and SoftBank, OpenAI gains access to vast user bases in Korea and Japan, allowing it to refine its AI for Asian languages and user behavior. This expansion is critical as the AI landscape becomes increasingly global, and companies like DeepSeek continue to challenge American dominance in generative AI.

Stargate Project: A U.S. AI Infrastructure Expansion

In addition to its Asia-focused initiatives, OpenAI is collaborating with SoftBank and Oracle on the Stargate Project, a joint venture to build multiple AI data centers in the United States. The project will begin with a large data center in Texas, backed by an initial $100 billion investment. Over the next four years, the partners could contribute up to $500 billion to further expand AI infrastructure.

OpenAI’s expansion strategy includes not only growing its presence internationally but also strengthening its infrastructure to support future AI development. This dual focus on global reach and robust infrastructure positions OpenAI to remain a dominant player in the evolving AI market.

Looking Ahead

OpenAI’s partnerships with Kakao and SoftBank mark a pivotal moment in its global expansion strategy. By entering the Korean and Japanese markets, OpenAI not only broadens its commercial reach but also enhances its ability to train multilingual AI models—a crucial step in maintaining a competitive edge against rising challengers like DeepSeek.

As OpenAI continues to forge strategic alliances and invest in infrastructure, the company is poised to lead the next phase of AI development, offering advanced solutions tailored to diverse markets around the world.

Editor’s Note: This article was created by Alicia Shapiro, CMO of AiNews.com, with writing, image, and idea-generation support from ChatGPT, an AI assistant. However, the final perspective and editorial choices are solely Alicia Shapiro’s. Special thanks to ChatGPT for assistance with research and editorial support in crafting this article.