OpenAI has teamed up with South Korean tech conglomerate Kakao to carry synthetic intelligence (AI) to its providers, cementing the US agency’s push into Asia amid fierce competitors from Chinese language upstart DeepSeek.
As a part of the deal, OpenAI’s superior AI fashions might be added to Kakao’s apps, together with its standard messaging service KakaoTalk, in keeping with native media reviews.
The partnership is the second introduced by OpenAI in as many days as the corporate forges deeper ties with Asia’s tech titans. On Monday, OpenAI and Japan’s SoftBank unveiled a three way partnership aimed toward creating AI instruments for Japanese companies.
The tie-up with Kakao gives a glimpse into how OpenAI might form on a regular basis apps, not simply in South Korea, however doubtlessly additional afield. But whereas Kakao is a family identify at residence, it stays little identified within the UK. Right here’s a take a look at the corporate taking part in a pivotal position in OpenAI’s international growth.
KakaoTalk is the Swiss military knife of apps, permitting customers to speak, store, e-book taxis, and extra.
Kakao
Kakao is a South Korean tech big finest identified for its super-popular chat app, KakaoTalk. The corporate began life in 2006 because the developer of mentioned messaging platform however grew to become a powerhouse in 2014 after merging with Daum, certainly one of Korea’s largest web portals (very similar to Yahoo! or MSN).
At the moment, Kakao has its arms in every part – from banking (KakaoBank), purchasing (KakaoCommerce), gaming (Kakao Video games), and ride-hailing (Kakao T) to cell funds (Kakao Pay) – making it a significant pressure in Korea’s digital world. Consider it like Uber, Meta, Monzo, and Amazon rolled into one.
Regardless of its chimeric qualities, the corporate’s flagship product stays KakaoTalk, which is much less like WhatsApp and extra like China’s WeChat – a spot the place you possibly can chat, store, e-book taxis, and even pay your payments. It’s the type of tremendous app that US tech bros, from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg, have been making an attempt to emulate for an age.
As of final October, the corporate counted 50 million customers throughout its collective providers.
How does OpenAI match into this?
Kakao CEO Chung Shina on the firm’s huge AI occasion final 12 months, the place it introduced new AI fashions and a digital assistant
Kakao
Kakao has been quietly constructing its AI muscle, rolling out a lineup of generative fashions that may whip up audio, visuals, and even voices primarily based on its roster of Okay-pop stars (as a result of, after all, Kakao is concerned in Okay-pop too). It additionally introduced an AI assistant app, with all of the AI stuff bundled into a brand new model referred to as Kanana.
Now, OpenAI is about to combine its cutting-edge fashions into Kakao’s providers with the goal of supercharging them. Stories counsel OpenAI’s programs might be woven into KakaoTalk, doubtlessly bringing ChatGPT-powered responses, smarter search, and AI-generated content material.
There’s additionally discuss of OpenAI enhancing Kanana, Kakao’s AI assistant, making it extra conversational and helpful throughout the corporate’s sprawling digital empire, taking in every part from purchasing to banking. Certainly, Kakao beforehand talked about utilising AI for an enormous vary of duties, reminiscent of stopping abuse on KakaoTalk, providing customized reward suggestions, automating promoting, and offering personalised monetary merchandise.
Notably, OpenAI’s cope with Kakao seems to be extra hands-on than its typical partnerships, with deeper collaboration in tailoring AI options for Kakao’s apps relatively than merely offering plug-and-play entry to its AI toolkit (or API).
What different firms is OpenAI partnering with in Asia?
President Donald Trump, accompanied by (R-L) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison on the launch of the Stargate Undertaking
Getty Photographs
Alongside Kakao, OpenAI can be cozying as much as South Korea’s chip and cell giants, in keeping with AP Information. Altman met with SK Group’s high brass to speak AI reminiscence chips – particularly high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM), the key sauce for highly effective AI servers. He’s additionally scheduled to take a seat down with Samsung’s chairman, hinting at even larger tech tie-ups on the horizon.
And it’s not simply Korea – OpenAI is making strikes throughout Asia. A day earlier, it teamed up with Japan’s SoftBank to launch a three way partnership targeted on AI for companies. Their first undertaking, Cristal, will assist firms streamline duties like advertising and marketing, emails, and sorting by way of outdated code. SoftBank plans to roll out Cristal throughout its personal firms, together with Cambridge-based chip big, Arm, with a hefty $3 billion annual funding.
SoftBank can be mentioned to be central to OpenAI’s subsequent funding spherical, which might see the AI agency elevate as much as $40 billion (£32 billion), valuing it at greater than $300 billion (£242 billion).
The subsequent cease on Altman’s Asian attraction offensive is India, the place he’ll pitch OpenAI as a key to the nation’s AI agenda – regardless of tensions with native billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani over copyright issues tied to their media networks.
What did Sam Altman say about DeepSeek?
DeepSeek
Andrew Williams
Altman’s energy strikes come amid the disruptive rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese language newcomer that has despatched shockwaves by way of international markets with its low-cost, high-efficiency fashions. President Trump described DeepSeek’s breakthroughs as a wake-up name for US firms.
In response, Altman has pledged to speed up the discharge of improved AI fashions. Requested concerning the rise of open-source fashions like Deepseek, Musk instructed a Korean AI agency that there’s “undoubtedly room for open supply”, including: “We’ve not found out a method but, however we wish to do extra.”
DeepSeek’s fast rise has fueled claims that it’s copying the playbook of high US tech companies. OpenAI not too long ago sounded the alarm by accusing the Chinese language agency of mimicking its superior AI utilizing a way known as distillation, the place smaller AI fashions “study” by imitating bigger ones, very similar to a scholar studying from a instructor.
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