Unique Research · Insight · September 10, 2024 · Source: KDDI Summit remarks — Tadao Nagasaki, CEO, OpenAI Japan
At the 2024 KDDI Summit, OpenAI Japan CEO Tadao Nagasaki said OpenAI’s next flagship — GPT-Next — is approaching, with performance expected on the order of ~100× GPT-4. The leap, he stressed, is not pure compute stacking but architecture.
GPT-Next is to draw on OpenAI’s secretive “Strawberry” effort (also linked in coverage to the “Q*” / Q-star thread) — framed as a step toward AGI by improving model architecture rather than only scaling FLOPs. Nagasaki also restated OpenAI’s commitment to communications × AI and sketched the company’s forward agenda.
ChatGPT past 200M active users
By end-August 2024, ChatGPT had crossed 200 million global active users — among the fastest software ramps ever. The 100M→200M jump, he said, shows both global AI adoption and how “extremely simple” access drives everyday use. ChatGPT Enterprise adoption continues to rise as a tool for efficiency and innovation inside companies.
Japan as Asia’s first OpenAI base
OpenAI has ~2,000 employees globally, roughly half on AI development, with hubs in the U.S. and U.K. Japan is its first Asian base — chosen, Nagasaki said, for Japan’s appetite for innovation and new tech.
Unlike traditional software’s linear path, AI progress is exponential. GPT-Next builds on gains already visible in GPT-4o (performance, cost, rate limits) and is meant to mark a larger step — an AI-centric future arriving faster.
Strawberry and the AGI horizon
CEO Sam Altman has also referenced the Strawberry project — widely read as OpenAI’s architecture-first push so models can learn and execute more complex tasks with less brute-force compute. AGI remains the long horizon: broad intelligent work with more human-like reasoning.
Close
From GPT-4 to a claimed ~100× GPT-Next, plus Strawberry and 200M ChatGPT users, OpenAI is pairing frontier models with distribution and a Japan foothold. Nagasaki’s talk cast AI as a structural part of society — with OpenAI aiming to stay central in that shift.
Note (from CN close): limited free tickets for an AI-marketing event via comment interest.
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