AI leader OpenAI will open an office in Dublin, the Microsoft-backed company announced on Thursday.
This will be the company’s third office. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and announced in June that it would also open an office in London.
The Dublin office will start small with three openings in Ireland for an international payroll specialist, a business position and a policy and partnership lead, but OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon said more positions will open in the near future.
The Dublin office will not be the company’s European headquarters and there is no board member to run the branch.
The Dublin office will not be the company’s European headquarters, Kwon told Reuters, “because we want to make sure the corporate culture is established in the new office before we scale up.”
By opening an office in Dublin, OpenAI will follow the strategy of US technology companies. In addition to accessing a talent pool already familiar with the culture of companies like Meta and Google, Kwon said Ireland is a good place to work with Europe from a regulatory and business development perspective.
Kwon says tax implications are not relevant to this decision as OpenAI is not profitable.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT app is the second fastest growing app in history, after Meta’s Threads. The app has caused both excitement and confusion, pitting OpenAI against regulators. In Europe in particular, the company’s extensive data collection has been criticized by privacy watchdogs.