Japans New AI Strategy: Beating Top Models Without Building One
Japans New AI Strategy: Beating Top Models Without Building One
A Japanese AI company has come up with a way to do artificial intelligence. They did not spend a lot of money to make a new model to compete with Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. Instead they made a system that uses leading AI models and puts their strengths together to get one answer.
The system is called Fugu. It was made by Sakana AI.
What Is Fugu?
Fugu is not a language model itself. It is like a helper that looks at what the user wants figures out which AI model is best for each part of the task gets the answers checks if they make sense and then gives one final answer.
Fugu does not rely on one model. It uses the things about many AI systems together.
How It Works
When a user asks Fugu a question it does the following things:
- It looks at what the user wants
- It breaks down tasks into smaller parts
- It sends each part to the AI model that's best for that part
- It checks the answers to make sure they are correct
- It puts everything together to get one answer
Why This Approach Matters
AI companies are trying to make bigger and more powerful models. But Sakana AI did something. They wanted to make the system for using many AI models together not just the smartest AI model.
This changes the focus from how big the model's to how well the system works. Sakana AI thinks that making a system that can use AI models is more important than making one big model.
The Team Behind Sakana AI
Sakana AI is a company in Tokyo. It was started by people who used to work at Google. One of the founders Llion Jones was one of the people who wrote an important paper in 2017 called "Attention Is All You Need."
That paper introduced the Transformer architecture, which is used in AI systems, including ChatGPT Claude and Gemini.
Reported Performance
Sakana AI says that the premium version, Fugu Ultra does very well on some big tests:
95.5
GPQA Diamond which's a hard science test
93.2
LiveCodeBench which's a test of real-world coding
90.8
LiveCodeBench Pro which's a hard coding test
The company says that Fugu Ultra does well because it uses many AI models together not because it has a new big model.
A Strategic Advantage
Sakana AI also says that their approach has another thing. Because Fugu can use AI models it does not rely too much on one model. If one model is not available in some places Fugu can use a model.
This makes Fugu more reliable and less dependent on one AI system.
Availability
Fugu started on June 22 2026. There are two versions:
- Fugu which is for things
- Fugu Ultra which is for research and hard problems
It costs $20 per month, which's similar to other AI services.
The Bigger Picture
For most users the question is not which AI model to use. Systems like Fugu show that in the future users will just ask a question and the system will choose the AI models to answer it.
Sakana AI thinks that the next big thing, in AI may not be a big model but a system that can use many models together. The future of AI may not belong to one model. To the systems that can use many models.
