A PYMNTS Company

OpenAI Picks London For 1st International Office

By  |  June 28, 2023

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has picked London for its first headquarters outside the United States.

“London’s vibrant technology ecosystem and its exceptional talent make it the ideal location for OpenAI’s first international office,” the company wrote in a blog post Wednesday (June 28). “The teams in London will focus on advancing OpenAI’s leading-edge research and engineering capabilities while collaborating on our mission with local communities and policymakers.”

The launch of the company’s new office comes amid increasing interest among world governments in the development and regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), a wave kicked off by the popularity of the ChatGPT tool.

Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was part of a group of tech executives who met with President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Modi’s visit to the U.S.

Related: Meta & OpenAI CEOs Back EU AI Regulations

Altman and executives from Microsoft and Google had previously also visited the White House in May to discuss AI with Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior officials.

In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also shown interest in influencing AI development, addressing the topic earlier this month in a speech at London Tech Week, saying that “if our goal is to make this country the best place in the world for tech, AI is surely one of the greatest opportunities” facing the country.

PYMNTS looked at the different approaches to AI earlier this week in a conversation with Shaunt Sarkissian, founder and CEO at AI-ID.

Europe’s fast-moving approach to regulating AI has — so far — left the U.S. in the dust.

“If you look at all rules that come out of the EU, generally they tend to be very consumer privacy-oriented and less fixated on how this is going to be used in commerce,” he said.

Given that AI requires data for training, the EU’s AI Act may have the unintended effect of shifting future innovations to other jurisdictions.

“If you make it difficult for models to be trained in the EU versus the U.S., well, where will the technology gravitate?” Sarkissian said. “Where it can grow the best. Just like water, it will flow to wherever is most easily accessible.”