OpenAI partners with Kakao to expand AI services in South Korea
Published on 04/02/2025
This was the second partnership deal signed this week between the ChatGPT developer and a high-profile Asian firm as it aims to expand its Stargate initiative.
US artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI has announced it will partner up with South Korean tech giant Kakao to further expand in the region.
OpenAI CEO Sam unveiled the partnership at an event in Seoul with Kakao's chief executive, Chung Shin-a. They will be working on a localised AI product.
This was the second partnership deal signed this week between the ChatGPT developer and a high-profile Asian firm, after the announcement of an alliance with Japan's SoftBank.
The AI sector has been shaken by the recent announcement from Chinese newcomer DeepSeek that it has come up with very smart but low-cost AI that threatens to undercut incumbents like California-based OpenAI.
Altman also met with top officials of SK Hynix, a South Korea-based major supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips, and Samsung Electronics Chairman, Lee Jae-yong.
Kakao operates South Korea's most popular messaging app KakaoTalk, which has expanded into areas such as e-commerce, payments, and gaming.
Altman is on a whirlwind tour of Asia, he is due to visit India on Wednesday.
Stargate is taking off in Asia
On Monday in Japan, SoftBank and OpenAI set up a 50-50 held company called SB OpenAI Japan.
SoftBank said it plans to spend around €3 billion a year to integrate its AI service Cristal across its companies, which include Arm, a semiconductor and software company, and PayPay, an electronic payment service.
Cristal could be used by companies for planning, marketing, emails and figuring out old source codes.