Toku announced the launch of Makimoto, an open-source initiative designed to provide conversational AI infrastructure that keeps customer data within Asia-Pacific jurisdictions. The programme was introduced on Apr, 27 2026.

Makimoto’s first release, called Makimoto Kawa, will be offered as a managed transcription API service hosted in Singapore from Jul, 1 2026. Future updates will include country-specific APIs and a containerised version that customers can deploy in their own cloud or data-centre environments.

Kawa runs its entire five-stage transcription pipeline inside Singapore, allowing enterprises to meet requirements under the Personal Data Protection Act and sector-specific guidelines. The orchestration framework is released under the MIT licence, letting operators swap individual components such as speech-to-text models or noise filters without altering surrounding systems.

A waiting list for early access is open at makimoto.ai, and Toku is creating ten Singapore-based roles for recent graduates to join the Makimoto team.

Makimoto is operated through Makimoto Technology Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toku, which plans to progressively open additional layers of the stack while maintaining commercial support for enterprise customers.