The latest big company to announce plans to research artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t a traditional technology vendor—it’s Japanese car maker Toyota. The company has announced plans to invest $1 billion in an AI and robotics research project that will be headquartered near Stanford in Silicon Valley with another lab near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Mass. The R&D effort will be set up as a company under the name Toyota Research Institute.
Gill Pratt, who formerly worked for DARPA, will lead the new company. Speaking about the research, he said, “We want to create cars that are both safer and incredibly fun to drive.”
