The operator of the largest South Korean social network, Kakao Corp., and the American company OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot, have announced a strategic partnership that includes, among other things, joint product development, reports Interfax-Kazakhstan.
The partnership also involves the integration of ChatGPT and other AI technologies from OpenAI into Kakao's services, including the KakaoTalk messenger. Kakao plans to launch its own AI brand, Kanana, later this year.
“South Korea is an incredibly important market,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at an event in Seoul. “It’s fascinating to see how broad the applications of AI are,” he noted.
The day before, Sam Altman was in Tokyo, where the establishment of a joint venture between SoftBank Group and OpenAI was announced for the development and sale of AI services to local companies. The joint venture, named SB OpenAI Japan, will be owned by OpenAI and the company being created by SoftBank Group and its telecommunications subsidiary (SoftBank Corp.).
Earlier, OpenAI stated that the company has data indicating that its models are being used by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek to train its own. Meanwhile, American company Nvidia Corp. considers the new R1 model from DeepSeek to be an excellent AI development. DeepSeek utilized "cut-down" versions of Nvidia chips for the Chinese market due to American export restrictions during its creation.