OpenAI is in expansion mode. The company has opened a new office in Dublin, Ireland. The objective is to collaborate with the Irish government and support their national AI strategy and work with industries and startups.

This is OpenAI’s second presence in Europe after it opened the London office in June this year where the company will focus on conducting new research and strengthen its engineering capabilities. This will also put the research lab close to policymakers, given that the European Union is on the roads to regulate AI. The United Kingdom’s corporate tax policy is lower compared to the United States. 

The expansion of the nonprofit-lab-turned-startup comes after Altman took a tour around the globe, meeting several country leaders on his stops. OpenAI now globally has 3 offices, with their headquarters in San Francisco, United States. 

“We believe that companies such as OpenAI operating in Ireland can help build on our foundation to support emerging AI research and innovation, and ensure our workforce is well prepared,” said Simon Coveney, Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Employment. 

Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer at OpenAI, told Reuters that the company wants to grow deliberately and not too rapidly because they want to make sure that the “culture of the company is established” first in the new office before they scale up. The motive to open this office in Dublin was not to benefit from lower taxes, as OpenAI is yet to be profitable, he said.

The Microsoft-backed company’s next stop might be Japan as Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO met the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishda in April this year to discuss expanding services in their country.