OpenAI plans to open its second German office in Berlin

Herz — Tech & Science Desk · 14 August 2026 at 08:47 · 30s summary · 2 min read

What we know

OpenAI plans to open its second office in Germany in Berlin, following its Munich location, in order to strengthen its national presence. The announcement was made on August 14, 2026, according to Handelsblatt and Die Zeit.

Sam Altman indicated that the exact opening date for the Berlin office had not yet been set. He expects, however, that it will open 'quite soon.'

Germany is OpenAI's largest European market for ChatGPT by number of paying subscribers, according to company data. It also ranks among its top three global markets.

An important market for OpenAI

Sam Altman describes Germany as one of OpenAI's most important historical markets and one of its fastest-growing.

He also considers the country a central partner, due to the sustained adoption of artificial intelligence by its economy.

The executive cited OpenAI's collaboration with Deutsche Telekom as an example of the company's ties to the German economy.

Local infrastructure under consideration

OpenAI is examining the possibility of developing local infrastructure in Germany. The company faces rapidly increasing computing needs to run and train its models.

Sam Altman supports the construction of data centers in Germany in order to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure.

He discussed a potential data center with government representatives in Berlin. Those talks have not produced any concrete outcome at this stage.

According to him, every country must choose between building data centers on its own territory and renting capacity in other countries.

He wants Germany to facilitate its own data centers by providing the necessary framework conditions and resources.

Altman also says the German economy already benefits from deep integration of modern artificial intelligence applications.

Business customer data

In response to concerns about confidential information and know-how, Sam Altman says OpenAI does not use business customers' inputs to train future models.

OpenAI also offers a contractual option allowing submitted data not to be retained for later analysis.

Finally, Altman says OpenAI wants to support the entire economy as a platform provider, rather than compete with its own customers.