Japan

On December 6, according to ITmedia, the latest version of the human robot Kaleido 9 was made public on December 3 in Kawasaki, Japan. Compared to the old model, Kaleido 9 has increased the stability of the lower part of the body, with a presentation at the “2025 International Robotic Fair” at the Tokyo International Exhibition Centre, as well as a demonstration of scenes such as the disaster scene. Kaleido 9 is the ninth generation product of the human robot RHP Kaleido, developed by Kawasaki Heavy Worker since 2015. Compared to the former product..

On November 18, according to news, the Japanese artificial intelligence start-up company Sakana AI announced yesterday ' s local time that the company had raised about 20 billion yen (approximately 918 billion yuan) in the B round of financing with a post-investment valuation of about 40 billion yen (note: the current exchange rate is approximately 183.51 billion yuan yuan), and that its cumulative financing had increased to about 52 billion yen (the current exchange rate is about 2,386 billion yuan yuan). According to Japan, this round of financing also led to the creation of Sakana AI in Japan..

ON NOVEMBER 17TH, ACCORDING TO CCJ TODAY, THE JAPAN UPPER JIJI UNIVERSITY RESEARCH TEAM RELEASED AN AI-BASED “HAVING BEAR AI FORECAST MAP” DESIGNED TO PREDICT THE PROBABILITY OF HUMAN ENCOUNTERS WITH BEARS IN 19 REGIONS OF SAPPORO, AKITA COUNTY, JAPAN. THE STUDY WAS LED BY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DATA SCIENCE, MS. DEEPAWA AND OTHERS. USING RECORD-KEEPING DATA FROM BEARS OVER THE PAST 1-3 YEARS, THE TEAM DEVELOPED AN AI METHODOLOGY FOR PREDICTING RISKS TO HUMAN BEARS, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT MULTIPLE FACTORS SUCH AS FOREST COVER, ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS, ROAD NETWORK LAYOUT AND POPULATION DISTRIBUTION. BASED ON THE ANALYSIS, THE RISK IS MORE..

On October 13th, the cultural and creative industries have become the key link in Japan's economy, where animations and cartoons have a global impact. On the other hand, OpenAI's blog for the launch of the Sora 2 Video Audio Generation Model contains several examples of Japanese animation. At a press conference this month, the Japanese Cabinet Office, which is responsible for areas such as intellectual property and the AI strategy, stated that it had made a request to OpenAI to refrain from violating copyright rights through the Department of Intellectual Property Strategy of the Cabinet Office. Downtown..

August 7, 2011 - Japanese newspaper news giant Yomiuri Shimbun filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court today, accusing U.S.-based generative AI search company Perplexity AI of infringing on its copyrights and requesting that the latter pay about 2.168 billion yen (note: the current exchange rate is about 106 million yuan). This is also the first time a major Japanese news organization has sued a generative AI company for unauthorized use of copyrighted material. In its complaint, the Yomiuri Shimbun states that Perplexity AI obtained and copied information from articles in the Yomiuri Shimbun Online...

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Japan is significantly lagging behind the world's leading countries in terms of generative artificial intelligence (AI) usage, according to a 2025 white paper released Tuesday by the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The whitepaper noted that only 26.7% of the Japanese population reported using such tools in fiscal year 2024, which, despite being a roughly three-fold increase from fiscal year 2023, is still much lower than AI-leading countries such as the United States and China. Of these, the U.S. has a high usage rate of 68.8%, while China's usage rate is even higher at 81.2%. 1AI notes that the white paper emphasizes that AI is...

May 28 news, 1AI learned from Xinhua News Agency, the plenary session of the Japanese Senate today with a majority vote in favor of the adoption of the first law dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI), aimed at promoting the research, development and application of AI-related technologies and preventing their misuse. The Law for the Promotion of Research, Development and Application of Artificial Intelligence-Related Technologies points out that AI technology is the foundation of Japan's economic and social development, and it is also an important technology from the point of view of safety and security. Under the new law, the AI Strategy Headquarters, headed by the Prime Minister with the participation of all Cabinet members, is to be established as the "command center" for Japan's AI policy, and to formulate...

May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has warned that the unauthorized use of artificial intelligence (AI) works generated from the voices of voice actors and actresses may violate the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, Kyodo News reported. The agency cited the act of learning the voices of voice actors and actresses through AI and having them sing non-representational songs that are subsequently uploaded to video platforms as an example. The local government has previously stated that these actions may violate the law under certain conditions, and is now using specific cases to further alert the public to the risks of unauthorized use. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) today released a report on the "Law on the Prevention of Unfair Competition from the Perspective of...

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- The use of generative AI in writing drafts of clinical trial reports for new drugs has dramatically reduced the time required, according to research published today by Japan's National Cancer Research Center, Kyodo News reported. Of the 119 drafts written, 80% were finalized with only minor revisions by a human. According to the center, by improving the efficiency of the process, the time it takes for a drug to be approved for use in patients can be shortened. Kenichi Nakamura, head of the international development department at the center's Central Hospital, said AI can also be used to create explanatory documents that are easy to understand for patients participating in trials. Previously, report production and other labor...

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in recent years, Japanese companies and some government departments have ventured into the field in an attempt to improve efficiency and solve problems such as manpower shortages through technological means. However, a project for an AI system in the country aimed at protecting children from abuse has failed due to technical flaws. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's Children & Families Agency had invested about 1 billion yen (note: currently about 48.506 million yuan) to develop an artificial intelligence-based system...

February 13, 2012 - Nikkei.com today published an interview with Professor Yutaka Matsuo of the University of Tokyo, who is the "first person to conduct AI research in Japan," which touches on issues such as DeepSeek's latest AI models, risks to security, and impacts on Japanese companies. Yutaka Matsuo said DeepSeek's technology is excellent, with performance close to that of OpenAI, and that every time DeepSeek releases a new AI model, it publishes a paper detailing the technology used in the model, as well as the improvements that it has taken the trouble to implement. The company is also known for its (anyone can make...)

U.S. tech giant Microsoft has opened its first Japanese research and development center in Tokyo, focusing on combining robotics with artificial intelligence, with an inauguration ceremony taking place on Nov. 18, NHK reported. The R&D center, called Microsoft Research Asia Tokyo, is the latest in a series of technology labs Microsoft has opened around the world. The lab is understood to plan to focus on the application of so-called embodied AI in manufacturing, healthcare and other industries, and will also work with major Japanese companies and universities. Microsoft said the company was impressed with Japan's expertise in robotics. Microsoft ...

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun on 25th, a 25-year-old Hayashi man was sentenced by the Tokyo District Court to three years' imprisonment and four years' probation for misuse of generative AI to create a computer virus, marking the first time in Japan that there has been a criminal conviction for misuse of generative AI. According to the judgment and other documents, on March 31 last year, this man created a ransomware-like computer virus at his residence in Kawasaki City using a computer and a smartphone with a malicious program design (source code) obtained by Generative AI. In addition, he posed as another person and fraudulently obtained...

Many people want to find a partner through the Internet, but they are afraid of experiencing personal privacy leakage or fraud. In response, Japan's Tokyo Metropolitan Government has stepped in with an officially endorsed artificial intelligence matchmaking system designed to help Tokyo residents find suitable partners. According to a 2021 Tokyo government survey, 67% of 3,267 Tokyo residents want to get married someday, but 69.3% of them have yet to take the first step toward finding a potential partner. The system, called "Tokyo Knot," was officially launched on Sept. 20 for unmarried people over the age of 18 who live, study or work in Tokyo. ...

Recently, Sakana AI, an AI research and development company headquartered in Tokyo, announced the successful completion of a round of A financing of more than $100 million. The main investors in this round of financing include New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital, and NVIDIA also participated. Sakana AI's goal is to promote AI research through nature-inspired intelligence and foundational models, especially in the areas of evolutionary optimization and sparsity. Sak…

Preferred Networks (PFN), a Japanese AI chip "unicorn" company, announced today that it has formed a capital and business alliance with Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings for the development and productization of PFN's next-generation AI semiconductors. According to the agreement signed between PFN and SBI Holdings, the two companies plan to jointly develop PFN's next-generation AI semiconductors and work together to promote chip productization, and cooperate in the packaging and testing process of the chip. In addition, SBI Holdings' parent company...

According to Kyodo News, Japanese robot innovation company "Human-Robot Integration" and Ritsumeikan University publicly displayed their latest humanoid robot on the 1st. The robot is remotely controlled by humans and can automatically maintain body balance and operate safely without knowing the surrounding environment in advance. According to reports, the company strives to put it into use in dangerous places such as high places within 5 years. The main information of the robot is as follows: In terms of parameters, the robot is about 2 meters high, about 70 centimeters wide, and weighs about 90 kilograms. In terms of operation, the robot is controlled by humans using a joystick to control the movements of its hands and feet, and the camera on the body…

Sakana AI, a startup in Tokyo, Japan, has introduced two new image generation models - Evo-Ukiyoe and Evo-Nishikie. The pictures are from Sakana AI official. These two models can be found on the Hugging Face platform. Their main purpose is to generate Ukiyo-e style artworks through text or image prompts. As we all know, Ukiyo-e is a traditional art form popular in Japan from the 17th to the 19th century, depicting many themes such as historical scenes, natural scenery and sumo wrestlers. Sakana AI has launched two new image generation models - Evo-Ukiyoe and Evo-Nishikie. The pictures are from Sakana AI official. These two models can be found on the Hugging Face platform. Their main purpose is to generate Ukiyo-e style artworks through text or image prompts. As we all know, Ukiyo-e is a traditional art form popular in Japan from the 17th to the 19th century, depicting many themes such as historical scenes, natural scenery and sumo wrestlers

Recently, the Japanese publishing industry has issued serious warnings about AI-driven search engines, believing that these emerging technologies are eroding the foundations of the news industry. The Japan News Publishers and Editors Association said that AI search engines are exploiting news media content without fair compensation, a phenomenon known as "free riding." In other words, AI systems borrow news content to make profits, but do not support the creation of content and the news ecosystem. Some experts point out that as generative AI systems continue to develop, new copyright laws may emerge to address potential infringement issues. These…

According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, Loverse, an AI dating app developed by a Japanese startup Samansa, has more than 5,000 users. The most obvious feature of this one-year-old app is that users are only allowed to interact with generative AI. The report mentioned the experience of a 52-year-old employee named Shimoda. He divorced two years ago and confessed: "I returned to an empty home. I really hope to get married again." In two months, he exchanged personal information with five or six potential partners, but he finally chose the above...

According to Kyodo News, the Japan News Association issued a statement on the 17th saying that AI search engines provided by US IT giants such as Google and Microsoft are likely to infringe copyright. The association pointed out that services such as AI search often use news reports as information sources without authorization and generate answers similar to news reports, and asked US IT giants to obtain permission from news media to use them. Image source: Pexels From the statement, the Japan News Association described the service as "combining a web search engine with generative artificial intelligence (AI)", that is, "a search-linked generative AI service...

Researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan have made a new breakthrough in collaboration with Alternative Machine, developing a humanoid robot system called Alter3 that can directly map natural language commands to robot actions. Its background model uses GPT-4 technology to complete a series of complex tasks, such as taking selfies or playing ghosts. This is one of a growing number of research results based on combining basic models with robotic systems. Although these systems have not yet reached scalable commercial solutions, they have promoted the development of robotics research in recent years and demonstrated...

Japanese generative AI startup Sakana AI is about to receive a major new investment that will value the company at about 180 billion yen (about 8.3 billion yuan), the Asahi Shimbun reported on Saturday. Driven by the global AI investment wave, this means that a new "unicorn" company will be born in Japan. A "unicorn" is an unlisted company with a valuation of more than $1 billion (about 7.276 billion yuan). According to the report, in July last year, Google's artificial intelligence researchers set up Sakana AI in Tokyo....

According to a Reuters report today, a Japanese startup, Carelogy, and Nihon University have developed an app called "CatsMe!" that is trained to recognize 6,000 pictures of cats and has had more than 230,000 users since its release last year. The app can tell when a cat is in pain, reducing the amount of stress users have to go through in trying to figure out when they need to take their cat to the vet. The developers say the app has an accuracy rate of more than 95%, and as the AI recognizes more cat faces, its accuracy...