TOKYO — The prominent Japanese tech firm SoftBank Group has enhanced its collaboration with OpenAI by launching a new joint venture named SB OpenAI Japan, which is co-owned by both companies.
At a recent event in Tokyo, SoftBank’s leader Masayoshi Son and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman highlighted their expanding partnership and welcomed businesses in Japan to participate. Holding a stylish blue crystal ball as a visual metaphor, Son mentioned that their AI service, Cristal, is designed to assist companies with planning, marketing strategies, email communication, and analyzing legacy source codes.
Initially, Cristal will be implemented within SoftBank’s own enterprises, such as Arm—known for its semiconductor and software innovations—and PayPay, a digital payments platform. The company disclosed plans to invest approximately $3 billion annually to incorporate Cristal across its various divisions.
“This will provide super-intelligence for the organization, and I’m incredibly enthusiastic about it,” Son expressed during the Transforming Business through AI event, addressing various media and attendees.
Altman also unveiled the newly announced feature called “deep research,” which empowers ChatGPT to execute tasks of greater complexity, including report generation through web browsing and accessing thousands of sources much quicker than a human could. He confirmed that this advanced research capability will be made available in Japan in Japanese.
“Our collaboration with SoftBank will hasten our mission to introduce revolutionary AI solutions to some of the most significant companies worldwide, beginning with Japan,” Altman stated.
Additionally, SoftBank and OpenAI are joining forces with Oracle as part of the Stargate initiative, a program that aims to channel up to $500 billion into artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States, initially supported during the Trump administration. Son noted that Stargate is set to broaden its reach into Japan and potentially other countries as well.
This announcement comes against the backdrop of developments within the tech sector, notably the recent introduction of DeepSeek, a Chinese contender claiming to have developed sophisticated yet cost-effective AI technology.
