Toyota sets aside $1 billion for AI and robotics research centers
Toyota originally announced earlier this year that it’s spending $50 million to establish joint research centers with MIT and Stanford. Turns out the company has decided to set aside a much, much bigger amount than that. Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda has revealed at an event in Tokyo that the automaker’s investing $1 billion (over the course of five years) to set up the Toyota Research Institute Inc. The initiative will be tasked with the development of artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous car technologies under the leadership of robotics expert Gill Pratt, a former DARPA program manager. Its first facility (with 200 employees) will open in Silicon Valley near Stanford University in January 2016. After that, the Japanese corporation will open a second facility near MIT in Cambridge.
Source: AP
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