Exactly a year after announcing its plan to open an office in Japan, OpenAI is opening its office this month in Tokyo. This would be the company’s first office in Asia. 

According to reports, OpenAI is also planning to release updates to its AI model in Japanese language. 

The Tokyo office would be OpenAI’s third expansion after London and Dublin.

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman had said that he is considering expanding services by opening an office in Japan when he met Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida where they spoke about the merits and the risks of privacy and security of the technology, as told by Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, according to reports by Reuters.

Matsuno said that Japan is currently evaluating the possibilities of introducing OpenAI’s technology in the country, said Matsuno.

After meeting with Kishida, Altman told reporters, “We hope to … build something great for Japanese people, make the models better for Japanese language and Japanese culture.” This is one of the first stops of Altman’s world tour after the launch of ChatGPT.

Furthermore, Taro Kono, who is responsible for Japan’s digital transformation in the cabinet, expressed optimism that AI technologies would play a significant role in the government’s workstyle reforms. However, he acknowledged that introducing ChatGPT into public offices would be challenging in the near future due to issues such as the potential for the technology to produce false information.

Apart from Japan, in December, OpenAI had also announced plans to start an office in India. Rishi Jaitly, who has held executive positions including the position of Vice President at Twitter, will assume the role of a senior advisor at OpenAI to guide the company through India’s AI policy and regulatory environment. Furthermore, OpenAI executives Anna Adeola Makanju , global head of Public Policy, James Hairston, and Jaitly recently met MoS for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrashekar.