"Office to Open Within the Next Few Months... Hiring to Begin Soon"
Third Asian Branch After Tokyo and Singapore
Jason Kwon, OpenAI CSO, Meets Democratic and People Power Parties to Discuss AI Policy
OpenAI, the developer of the artificial intelligence (AI) service ChatGPT, is establishing an office in Seoul, officially entering the Korean market.
OpenAI announced on the 26th that it has officially established a legal entity in Korea and will open its first office in Seoul within the next few months to begin full-scale operations in the country. The location of the office has not yet been determined. OpenAI will soon begin recruiting staff to promote cooperation with local stakeholders.
Sam Altman, CEO and founder of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, attended the 'Kakao Media Day' held at the Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 4th and had a conversation with Jeong Sinah, CEO of Kakao. Photo by Kang Jinhyung
OpenAI completed the registration of its legal entity under the name "OpenAI Korea LLC" on the 14th. The capital is 100 million won, and the representative director of the Korean entity is Robert J. Linow, an American.
The establishment of OpenAI's Korean office is the third among Asian countries. OpenAI currently operates branches in Tokyo, Japan, and Singapore. Globally, over the past year, it has expanded its presence to 11 cities, including London in the United Kingdom, Dublin in Ireland, Brussels in Belgium, and Paris in France.
OpenAI decided to establish a local office in Korea as the number of users of OpenAI services such as ChatGPT has increased in the country. According to OpenAI, Korea has the second largest number of paid ChatGPT subscribers worldwide, after the United States. The number of weekly active ChatGPT users has increased more than 4.5 times over the past year, making Korea one of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of user numbers.
The number of developers utilizing OpenAI's API (Application Programming Interface) platform in Korea also ranks among the top 10 countries globally. In addition, the number of paid enterprise service users is among the top 5 countries worldwide.
OpenAI has already established partnerships with numerous Korean companies. It announced financial cooperation with Korea Development Bank (KDB) for the development of domestic data centers and the nurturing of local startups. Among IT companies, OpenAI has formed partnerships with Kakao, Krafton, and SK Telecom for the adoption of AI technologies. As a result, OpenAI's models are used in Kakao's services, including the AI agent "Kanana," and SKT's AI agent "A.Dot" also utilizes OpenAI's large language model (LLM).
OpenAI described Korea's AI ecosystem as "one of the most active countries in the world in adopting AI." Jason Kwon, OpenAI's Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), said, "We are very pleased to expand OpenAI's activities in Korea, a country where innovation, technology, and creativity come together," adding, "Korea has a full-stack ecosystem that covers all areas of AI, from semiconductors to software, and is a leading AI nation where people of all generations, from students to seniors, use AI in their daily lives."
Meanwhile, on this day, Kwon, the CSO, will meet separately with AI policy officials from the presidential election central campaign committees of both the People Power Party and the Democratic Party to discuss ways for OpenAI to cooperate in expanding the national AI infrastructure. In addition to Korea, Kwon is scheduled to visit Japan, Australia, India, and Singapore to discuss AI infrastructure development and ways to utilize OpenAI's software.
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