Artificial Intelligence

Hitachi Construction Machinery will bring an artificial intelligence service designed to predict excavator malfunctions to China, as the Japanese company looks to build on its group's partnership with Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings.

Bill Huang likes to think in hundred-year cycles. A former telecoms engineer, Huang founded CloudMinds in 2015, driven by the belief that the unstoppable rise of artificial intelligence and the widespread adoption of robotics will outpace the capabilities of computer chips. His solution: to build a "cloud brain" that connects millions of robots in homes, offices and factories with the vast computing power of remote servers. CloudMinds' pitch, with its huge ideas, long-term vision and its worldview centered on the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, was almost guaranteed to appeal to Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of SoftBank Group.

The Japanese government will fund a program to develop artificial-intelligence-powered software that performs simultaneous interpretation in 15 languages, aiming to have it ready by the 2025 World Expo in Osaka.

Japanese information technology group Fujitsu will offer financial institutions a credit-scoring tool that uses artificial intelligence to screen prospective borrowers.

Drawing lessons from one of the worst disasters in the nation’s history, a team of Japanese researchers is developing an artificial intelligence-based tsunami-forecasting system set for release in fiscal 2020 that could help limit loss of life and property in future calamities.

A Japanese incubator owned by SoftBank Group, is accelerating its investment into the country's artificial intelligence startups despite the verdict of its parent group's founder that Japan is "underdeveloped" in the cutting edge technology.

SoftBank Group will invest another $2 billion in Indonesia, covering areas such as artificial intelligence and the development of an electric vehicle ecosystem, CEO Masayoshi Son said after he met with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo on Monday.

Japanese logistics company Nippon Express will begin road tests of automated trucks with a Volvo subsidiary next month, a step toward addressing the industry's severe shortage of drivers.

When times are good, there is less political pressure at the local level anywhere to be economically efficient or carefully scrutinize predictions that a new public works project or expensive industrial or tourism promotion scheme will lead to prosperity in 20 or 30 years.

Sony Corp. said Wednesday it will set up a venture fund of around ¥20 billion ($185 million) with a Daiwa Securities Group Inc. unit to invest in prospective startups.