Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is embarking on a ten-day tour across six countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to solidify alliances and maintain AI dominance against rising competition, particularly from China’s Deepseek.
Altman recently suggested a new approach to open-source strategies. He seems to have found his answer in strategic alliances with major global corporations.
According to industry sources on Wednesday, Altman is undertaking a tight travel schedule across six nations within ten days.
On Tuesday, after arriving in South Korea, he met with key business leaders, including SK Group Chairman Chey Tae Won, Kakao CEO Jeong Shin Ah, and Krafton CEO Kim Chang Han. Later in the afternoon, he attended a three-way meeting with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae Yong and SoftBank Group Chairman Son Masayoshi.
Discussions focused on AI-related collaborations.
On Monday, Altman visited Japan to meet Son Masayoshi and Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru.
Later in the week, he will travel to New Delhi, India, to meet with investors on Friday before attending an AI seminar at the Technical University of Berlin. On February 10, he will attend the AI Summit in Paris, where he will meet with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.
His global tour will conclude in Dubai, where he will attend the World Government Summit (February 12–14) alongside Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Alibaba Group Chairman Joseph Tsai.
This aggressive series of engagements is a strategic move to forge partnerships with major global corporations and secure investments to safeguard OpenAI’s leading position in the AI industry. Recent developments, such as Deepseek’s release of a cost-effective and highly efficient AI model as open-source, have raised concerns about the challenge to OpenAI’s technological edge.
Altman’s recent statements reflect a complex and evolving strategy. While initially acknowledging Deepseek’s AI as impressive in terms of cost-performance ratio, he also hinted at a potential shift toward open-source models, recognizing the risk of losing technological superiority.
However, his stance has since become more aggressive. In an interview with a Japanese media outlet on Sunday, Altman downplayed Deepseek’s R1 model, stating that its performance is not groundbreaking. He also announced plans to develop proprietary AI-powered smartphones and semiconductors in collaboration with SoftBank.
OpenAI and SoftBank jointly established “SB OpenAI Japan” as an AI venture and introduced the deep reasoning AI model “Deep Research,” which reportedly has three times the accuracy of R1.
This shift in approach is primarily driven by the need to emphasize OpenAI’s competitive edge and attract investment. The Deepseek shock has increased the pressure to accelerate technological innovation, while large-scale fundraising within the U.S. has become increasingly challenging.
Moreover, OpenAI’s aggressive moves are also fueled by concerns that Deepseek has utilized OpenAI’s proprietary AI development and reasoning processes for learning and then released its models as open-source, causing frustration and potential setbacks.
An industry insider commented that Altman’s rapid global tour primarily aims to secure investment from non-U.S. companies. This highlights OpenAI’s efforts to expand its financial backing beyond the American market.