Toyota’s $1B Investment In Artificial Intelligence And Robotics Puts It At

Toyota said Friday, November 6, it will establish a new $1 billion research and development unit focusing on artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley in the United States.

The new Toyota Research Institute will be located near Stanford in Silicon Valley, with 200 employees working on a range of robotics and AI research, not just limited to cars.

It will be established in January and be based close to Stanford University and have a second campus near MIT near Boston.

The focus of the R& D projects at Toyota Research Institute will be to improve safety by continuously decreasing the likelihood that a vehicle will be involved in an accident, make driving accessible to everyone, regardless of ability, and apply Toyota technology used for outdoor mobility to indoor environments, particularly for the support of seniors.

The investment follows a $50m investment in artificial intelligence research at both MIT and Stanford.

He observes that the group started out as a loom manufacturer-now a separate company called Toyota Boshoku (3116.TO)-and says artificial intelligence may lead to new essential technologies.

To drive house the message that the automaker’s imaginative and prescient was greater than about simply automobiles, Toyoda appeared at a Tokyo lodge with excessive profile robotics professional Gill Pratt, who will head the brand new group referred to as Toyota Research Institute Inc.

Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation, said, “As technology continues to progress, so does our ability to improve products”.

He gave three examples from his personal life that motivate him to develop robotics and related technology: when he was a child, seeing a boy on a bicycle killed by a auto; telling his 83-year-old father he could no longer drive; and sending his father to a nursing home when he was 84. Wooing expertise is essential as a result of not exclusively are automakers similar to General Motors, Tesla and Nissan competing on autonomous driving however outsiders are as nicely, together with Google, Apple and Uber.

Mr Pratt, who grew up on Japanese robot animation and dreamed of one day building such robots, said he chose Toyota over other jobs because it was “so focused on social good”.