SoftBank, OpenAI Team Up to Develop AI for Japan Business.

SoftBank Group Corp. and OpenAI will create a joint venture to develop and sell AI services to businesses across Japan, establishing one of the broadest efforts yet to sell the fast-growing startup’s tools to enterprise customers outside of the US.

Billionaire SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman took to a Tokyo stage Monday to outline their 50-50 collaboration. The venture, which will operate under SoftBank’s telecom arm SoftBank Corp., will hire 1,000 people from SoftBank to market OpenAI products to industries from automakers to retailers. SoftBank group companies — including investees such as PayPay and LY Corp. — will collectively spend $3 billion a year on the US firm’s tools.

The tie-up underscores SoftBank’s emergent role in driving AI development around the world, from leading the $100 billion “Stargate” US endeavor to a years-long effort to build datacenters and support research in its home country of Japan.

Source: FINANCE.YAHOO