Toyota bets on artificial intelligence

By CARSIFU | 6 November 2015


TOKYO: Toyota has announced it will set up a new company to focus on artificial intelligence and robotics.

The headquarters of Toyota Research Institute Inc. (TRI) will be located in Silicon Valley near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. A second facility will be located near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new company will begin operations in January 2016.

Toyota believes artificial intelligence has significant potential to support future industrial technologies and the creation of an entirely new industry. To underscore this belief, it is making an initial investment of US$1 billion over the next five years, to establish and staff the two initial locations and conduct operations. The investment is in addition to the US$50 million investment over the next five years with MIT and Stanford to establish joint fundamental artificial intelligence research centres at each university.

TRI will help bridge the gap between fundamental research and product development.

Directed by Dr Gill Pratt, Toyota’s executive technical advisor and the chief executive officer of the new enterprise, TRI will hire leading researchers and engineers to support its range of activities.

“Our initial goals are to firstly to improve safety by continuously decreasing the likelihood that a car will be involved in an accident; secondly to make driving accessible to everyone, regardless of ability; and thirdly to apply Toyota technology used for outdoor mobility to indoor environments, particularly for the support of seniors," said Dr Pratt.

"We also plan to apply our work more broadly, for example to improve production efficiency and accelerate scientific discovery in materials.”

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