Meet David Ha – The Wall Street trader who put Japan back on the AI map

For the last few years, the AI industry has settled for one common formula – you need a massive large language model (LLM) to run the smartest and most capable AI systems. Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have poured billions of dollars in large language models to power all the smartness we hail as AI. Japan’s Sakana AI, however, has a different approach, and it’s inspired by fish. You must have read about Fugu recently.

While the summer of 2026 was marked by geopolitical restrictions on AI exports, Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based startup, quietly flipped the script. They launched Fugu, an elegant and hyper-efficient AI system named after the Japanese blowfish. Unlike Claude Mythos or GPT-5.6, Fugu didn’t try to outscale the American titans.