SB Intuitions opens free Sarashina beta with 6-model API

Sarashina is the flagship large language model (AI that understands and generates text) series from SB Intuitions, a SoftBank subsidiary that focuses its generative AI research and development on Japanese-language capability. The new beta is the first time the company has put the series in front of the general public without an application step: a Google login is enough to reach both the chat interface and the model API.

The API exposes six specialized models rather than one general-purpose model. Alongside Sarashina3 mini for dialogue and Sarashina3 nano for high-volume simple tasks, the lineup includes Sarashina3 embedding and Sarashina3 rerank for document search and retrieval-augmented generation, Sarashina3 guard for judging the safety of input text, and Sarashina3 translate for Japanese-English translation. SB Intuitions says the models can be embedded in a company's own systems to check whether they suit the intended use.

The company has designed its own tokenizer for Japanese and says the same text can be represented in half the tokens of a US model. Free access comes with a per-time request limit, and no end date for the beta has been set. SB Intuitions says it may use user data to improve quality, and plans to apply the usage and feedback gathered during the beta to future product development and feature expansion.