SoftBank and OpenAI unveil Japan AI joint venture
Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:
DEEP RESEARCH:
OpenAI has unveiled a new AI offering that can gather information from across the internet and synthesize it in concise reports. The new tool called Deep Research was presented with a demonstration on YouTube on Sunday, days after showing the technology to lawmakers, policymakers and other officials in Washington, The New York Times’ Cade Metz reported. “It can do complex research tasks that might take a person anywhere from 30 minutes to 30 days,” Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s chief product officer, said at the event in Washington. By contrast, Deep Research can accomplish such tasks in five to 30 minutes, depending on the complexity.
OPENAI O3-MINI:
Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI said it is releasing OpenAI o3-mini, “the newest, most cost-efficient model in our reasoning series, available in both ChatGPT and the API today.” “Previewed in December 2024, this powerful and fast model advances the boundaries of what small models can achieve, delivering exceptional STEM capabilities-with particular strength in science, math, and coding-all while maintaining the low cost and reduced latency of OpenAI o1-mini,” the company adds. OpenAI o3-mini is the company’s first small reasoning model that supports highly requested developer features including function calling, Structured Outputs, and developer messages, making it production-ready out of the gate. Like OpenAI o1-mini and OpenAI o1-preview, o3-mini will support streaming. Also, developers can choose between three reasoning effort options-low, medium, and high-to optimize for their specific use cases. o3-mini does not support vision capabilities, so developers should continue using OpenAI o1 for visual reasoning tasks.
JAPAN AI JOINT VENTURE:
OpenAI and the SoftBank Group (SFTBY) announced a partnership to develop and market Advanced Enterprise AI called “Cristal intelligence.” Cristal intelligence will securely integrate the systems and data of individual enterprises in a way that is customized specifically for each company. SoftBank Group Corp. will spend $3B annually to deploy OpenAI’s solutions across its group companies, making it the first company in the world to integrate Cristal intelligence at scale, as well as deploying existing tools like ChatGPT Enterprise to employees across the entire group. Furthermore, to accelerate the deployment of Cristal intelligence customized for Japan-based companies, OpenAI and the SoftBank Group agreed to establish a joint venture company called “SB OpenAI Japan.” This JV will market Cristal intelligence exclusively to major companies in Japan. As part of its agreement with OpenAI, SoftBank Group companies, including Arm (ARM) and SoftBank Corp., will be granted priority access in Japan to the latest and most-advanced models developed by OpenAI. SB OpenAI Japan, which will be 50:50 owned by OpenAI and a company established by SoftBank Group Corp. and SoftBank Corp., will be consolidated to SoftBank Corp. The JV will serve as a springboard for introducing AI agents tailored to the unique needs of Japanese enterprises while setting a model for global adoption. Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., said: “We are thrilled to bring Cristal intelligence, Advanced Enterprise AI that is customized specifically for each company, to the market in a big way.”
STRATEGIC AI INTEGRATION:
GeoVax Labs (GOVX) announced its endorsement of President Donald Trump’s Stargate Initiative, “which aims to harness advanced technologies including Artificial Intelligence to strengthen U.S. healthcare, biosecurity, and global innovation leadership.” This announcement aligns with GeoVax’s commitment to leveraging AI across its vaccine and cancer immunotherapy programs to accelerate research, optimize operations, and deliver life-saving solutions, the company says.
ENERGY SUPPLY:
Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and Shell (SHEL) are betting that part of their future lies in supplying the energy needed for America’s technology giants to win the race for AI supremacy, Kevin Crowley of Bloomberg reports. Those plans, however, took a significant knock after the release of DeepSeek’s AI model, which uses a fraction of the power required to run the AI models released by OpenAI and Meta Platforms. Despite this, the world’s largest oil companies are betting on growing demand for electricity generated from natural gas in the future where crude consumption peaks due to the energy transition. “We’re also well-positioned to meet surging demand from data centers for low-carbon power, and on a timetable that alternatives such as nuclear simply can’t match,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said on a call with analysts, according to Bloomberg.
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Originally Posted February 3, 2025 – AI Daily: OpenAI unveils AI research tool ‘Deep Research’
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