SoftBank Group Corp. and OpenAI have formed a new 50-50 joint venture, SB OAI Japan, to localize and distribute OpenAI's enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) technologies within Japan. The initial client for these services will be SoftBank itself.
The newly established entity, SB OAI Japan, will offer what the companies describe as "Crystal intelligence," a packaged enterprise AI solution developed for corporate management and operational functions across Japanese businesses. According to a statement released by SoftBank, "Crystal intelligence is designed to help organizations enhance productivity and management efficiency through the adoption of advanced AI tools. The solution combines OpenAI's enterprise offerings with localized implementation and support provided through SB OAI Japan."
This joint venture follows SoftBank's substantial investments in the AI sector, which include tens of billions of dollars into OpenAI and additional commitments for building AI data centers and infrastructure. SoftBank has reported widespread internal adoption of AI, with its employees actively utilizing AI in daily operations and the creation of 2.5 million custom ChatGPT instances for internal use. As the inaugural customer, SoftBank plans to deploy the joint venture's solutions across its diverse businesses to validate their efficacy in product development and business transformation, subsequently sharing these insights and expertise with other companies via SB OAI Japan.
The formation of SB OAI Japan occurs amid broader market discussions regarding the financial scale of AI development. Analysts have expressed concerns over the significant capital deployed into AI initiatives and the high valuations attributed to companies within the sector. These investment trends have drawn comparisons by some market observers to previous economic periods, including the dot-com boom, characterized by substantial capital influx into nascent business models without immediate clarity on returns on investment.
