Toyota to Invest $1 Billion for Artificial Intelligence Ramp;D

Toyota says that its goal is to bridge the gap between the research happening in university labs and actual product development. The investment is in addition to the $50 million investment over the next five years with MIT and Stanford to establish joint fundamental artificial intelligence research centers at each university.

Japan’s biggest automaker said it will spend $1 billion over the next five years on the firm to be called Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and located in Palo Alto. A second facility will also be planned sometime soon which will be situated near MIT in Cambridge. He said his new role as head of the TRI will focus on advancements in safety, accessibility and robotics. TRI will focus on reducing vehicle accidents, making driving accessible to everyone and using Toyota’s mobility technologies for indoor applications. The company also plans to apply its work more broadly, for example, to improve production efficiency and accelerate scientific discovery in materials. This upcoming facility is a sign of Japanese carmaker’s fondness to be leaders in the futuristic cars that will be self driven.

It said that it believes that artificial intelligence has the potential to support future technologies and create an entirely new industry. It will start with the creation of laboratories near Stanford and MIT, with Gill Pratt, a former MIT professor and official at DARPA being named CEO of the new company. The research institute will begin as a 5-year initiative with a $1 Billion investment at the foothold of Silicon Valley, reports Digital Trends.

Asked if Toyota can compete with rivals such as Google in this field, Pratt said that manufacturing sophisticated self-driving vehicles is an extremely hard challenge, and that competition now is at a very early stage, indicating Toyota has a good chance of success.