After Big Deal with SoftBank, OpenAI Continues Drive into Asia, Partners with Kakao

DeepSeek has made a huge impression in the AI industry, in the United States and around the world. It took over OpenAI's American backyard, leaving competitors in its wake. Now, Open AI is doubling down on Asia, with major commercial deals that will also help it train its AI on more Asian-language content and user behavior. 

In recent reports, OpenAI unveiled a strategic partnership with Kakao, a South Korean tech company that operates one of Asia's most popular messaging apps, KakaoTalk. This comes against the backdrop of OpenAI's partnership with SoftBank, with the latter having announced a major commitment to using OpenAI. SoftBank allocated a budget of $3 billion to deploy OpenAI tech across its various group operations and subsidiaries, and also establish a joint venture, SB OpenAI Japan, aimed at building solutions customized for enterprises in the country.

Branching Out

The news was announced at an event in Seoul co-led by Kakao CEO Shina Chung and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and it will initially cover three projects. Together, both companies plan to develop a new Korean-language assistant called Kanana powered by OpenAI. This move will also involve integrating OpenAI tech into KakaoTalk; and Kakao will also become a customer of OpenAI’s, using ChatGPT Enterprise internally among its employees.

Since the SoftBank announcement, the partnership has looked stronger, with even more investment in OpenAI purportedly coming from the bank. While that's yet to be confirmed, they're working together on the Stargate project to build AI super servers and other infrastructure in the U.S. This union will undoubtedly boost both groups and their respective regions. 

In a statement, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman said “Kakao has a deep understanding of how technology can enrich everyday lives, and they’ve consistently delivered innovative experiences for their users.” “We’re excited to bring advanced AI to Kakao’s millions of users and work together to integrate our technology into services that transform how Kakao’s users communicate and connect,” the statement continued. 

Wide-Reaching Benefits

Naturally, the deals with Kalo and SoftBank will benefit OpenAI in another very significant way. OpenAI continues to build and train its Large Language Models. With deals covering Korea and Japan, coupled with their access to millions of consumers in their respective markets, OpenAI gets a significant opportunity to unlock new linguistic doors.

This is of more importance given DeepSeek's recent rise to the top. If the Chinese innovation sticks to its early and dominant ratings, and avoids legal, copyright, data protection, and other issues, it would be a clear signal to OpenAI that a company building outside of the United States is intent on leading the English-language generative AI momentum.

As a result, OpenAI strives to expand its reach internationally to compete without restricting its ability to English areas. SoftBank also has an excellent opening to boost its international standing. The collaboration is part of Altman's broader plan to connect with other major Korean tech giants, such as Samsung Electronics and Korean semiconductor maker SK Hynix. He took meetings with them to discuss custom-designed chips and AI-powered devices, per a local media report. 

Joining Other Tech Giants

OpenAI is going the way of other tech giants in creating their in-house AI chips, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. Last week, OpenAI introduced Operator, an agent built to perform tasks like vacation planning and restaurant reservations on the web, and the o3-mini. The latest move further underlines their ambition.