David Ha, the head of AI tech company Sakana AI, points at his laptop during an interview at the company's office in Tokyo on Aug. 28. When David Ha started an artificial intelligence company in Japan with his former Google colleague, they had a choice: create another huge, energy-intensive tool like ChatGPT, or go their own way. Since its 2023 launch, the value of their company Sakana AI has soared past $1 billion, making it Japan's fastest startup to reach so-called unicorn status. They're just like collecting the world's data, building a gigantic model, sucking up all this energy, Ha said. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.