But did they deliver anything yet? There are many startups with notable founders that are not being able to get models launched. And even if they are able to launch, so they get PMF. In case of Sakana, they clearly focus on the Japanese market an have buildup a good pipeline on sovereign AI. But similar to Aleph Alpha or to a certain extend Mistral, I don't see how they can keep up.
I think every country/major country at the government level will back any home grown talent in view of USA restrictions.
The models don't need to be as good, just good enough for the task. I am using a Claude Q3 2024 model mostly (Haiku 4.5) at present, and it delivers what I need.
I live in Japan and yet can't seem to pay for their API in JPY... I bet their enterprise customers don't have that problem but it was pretty annoying given "AI in Japan" appears to be there only selling point.