OpenAI has announced the opening of a new Tokyo hub and plans to develop a GPT-4 model optimized for the Japanese language. This marks the company's first office in Asia and fourth globally. OpenAI's expansion efforts have been strategic, with the U.K. and EU being major hubs for AI talent and regulation, respectively. The new Japanese business will be led by Tadao Nagasaki, who has experience in the enterprise segment from his time at Amazon Web Services. The GPT-4 model will provide enhanced understanding of the nuances within the Japanese language and improved performance.

Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management announced that it holds shares in OpenAI, but did not disclose how it invested in OpenAI. In an email to clients on Thursday, Ark stated, "As of April 10, 2024, the ARK Venture Fund has invested in OpenAI," and "OpenAI is at the forefront of the explosion of artificial intelligence capabilities." It is reported that this closed Ark fund, launched in September 2022, invests in public and private companies, including Musk's SpaceX, Epic Games Inc., Freenome Holdings Inc., and Relation Therapeutics.

OpenAI announced on its official website that GPT now has full functionality equivalent to plugins. The GPT store has a search function where users can search for the name or other details of the plugins they use. On April 9th, the ChatGPT plugin beta test will end. Previously, users have not been able to create new conversations with plugins since March 19, 2024.

According to Techinasia, OpenAI plans to establish its first Asian office in Tokyo to provide customer support. CEO Sam Altman met with the Japanese Prime Minister last year expressing interest in the region and promising to work with the Japanese government to protect user privacy and security. Meanwhile, Temasek Holdings in Singapore is reportedly discussing investing in OpenAI, while the UAE government is also discussing raising funds with Altman for artificial intelligence chip development. In addition, Chinese company ByteDance is increasing its investment in the field of artificial intelligence, recently releasing over 100 job vacancies related to generative artificial intelligence.

On March 20th, according to informed sources, OpenAI is expected to launch the next version of its flagship artificial intelligence tool, ChatGPT, which will be GPT-5, possibly in the middle of this year, maybe in the summer. Since the last major model upgrade to GPT-4, the tool has encountered performance issues. It is said that the upcoming GPT-5 will have "substantial improvements" in performance. OpenAI has already demonstrated the latest model and its related enhancements to some corporate clients.

According to a recent statement, the OpenAI board was unaware of the extent to which abruptly removing Sam Altman would destabilize the company.

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Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Anderson forwarded a screenshot of an email from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Steven Sinofsky, former Microsoft executive and current board partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, commented: "This is a classic argument against open source related to security. The idea that open source is insecure because 'bad guys' can see the source code to exploit weaknesses. Closed source can prevent this. This is completely wrong." Anderson responded: "The safest software in the world is open source. Most people pay attention and most bugs are fixed. QED (proof complete)." Musk responded: "Absolutely true."

According to the Financial Times on March 5th, Singaporean state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings is in talks with Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT development company OpenAI, marking the first time a group with national backing has invested in OpenAI. Sources say that Temasek's senior executives have met with Altman several times in recent months to discuss preliminary but ongoing discussions, and no agreement has been reached on any investment scale. The talks come as Altman seeks funding to launch a semiconductor business aimed at reducing dependence on cutting-edge chips manufactured by Nvidia. Despite OpenAI's significant revenue growth since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Altman has stated that OpenAI is still operating at a loss due to the enormous cost of building and training its models. Temasek's investment interest reflects its increasingly global footprint over the past decade, with the investment company currently holding a portfolio worth $287 billion globally, including some top-tier tech startups. OpenAI is currently supported by $1.3 billion from Microsoft (its largest investor), as well as several venture capital groups such as Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Based on an internal memo sent to company employees by OpenAI, the company "strongly disagrees" with Musk's lawsuit against the company. Musk previously filed a lawsuit with the San Francisco Superior Court, suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for violating the contract. Musk stated in the lawsuit that Altman and OpenAI violated an agreement made when the artificial intelligence research company was founded, to develop technology for the benefit of humanity rather than for profit.