NEC, University of Tokyo announce industry-academia alliance for strengthening innovation

NEC Corporation and the University of Tokyo recently announced the commencement of a comprehensive industry-academia alliance for strengthening innovation in Japan.

This alliance differs from others in that it has been created under an organization-to-organization agreement to promote comprehensive collaboration, including the sharing of visions and issues from the fundamental research phase to the commercialization of research results phase, the consideration of social acceptance of research results, and the development of human resources for the future.

As per the alliance, members of top management for both parties will be directly involved in operations, making large-scale investments and conducting innovative research and development, with NEC taking responsibility for the promotion of commercialization.

Top-notch researchers will be brought together by taking advantage of the human resource networks of both parties.

With the aim of commercialization, interdisciplinary investigations will be conducted in regard to implications for ethics and legal systems and social acceptability by capitalizing on the University of Tokyo's status as a leading university.

Among the first actions by this industry-academia alliance for innovation will be considering the magnitude of the impact of AI on society, to conclude the NEC/University of Tokyo Partnership Agreement for Future AI Research and Education in the field of Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI), and to commence specific activities.