Toyota Motor Corp.’s FCV Plus hydrogen-powered concept car.
Toyota Motor Corporation has announced it will establish a new company, Toyota Research Institute Inc. (TRI), as an R&D enterprise with an initial focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. The headquarters will be located in Silicon Valley near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. A second facility will be located near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new company will begin operations in January, 2016.
Toyota is making an initial investment of $1 billion over the next five years, to establish and staff the two initial locations and conduct operations. 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.
TRI’s primary mission will be to accelerate R&D in a range of fields, in particular using artificial intelligence and big data technology to make cars that can overcome driver errors and reduce traffic fatalities.
TRI will be directed by Dr. Gill Pratt, 54, who joined Toyota after serving as the program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) robotics efforts.
Toyota has stated it aims to introduce cars with automated highway driving capability by around 2020. The year 2020 has particular import for Japanese carmakers, as they want to showcase their progress in autonomous vehicles as Tokyo hosts the Olympics that year.