Top Artificial Intelligence-Based Startups in Japan

Machines that have been taught to understand and learn similarly to humans are said to have artificial intelligence (AI). They can be introduced to carry out operations that ordinarily demand human intellect, such as speech recognition, understanding natural language, and decision-making. AI can take many forms, including computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning. Many industries could transform thanks to AI, which could also increase task accuracy and efficiency.

We’ll look at some AI-based startups in Japan in this article.

Tier Ⅳ

Providers of software and systems for creating autonomous vehicles. The business asserts that, with the aid of its partners, it can offer complete solutions for developing autonomous vehicles. Provides 3D-printed electric vehicle platforms, development kits for autonomy, sensors, software, and several related services. It offers sensor fusion technology, and its product range combines laser scanners and cameras. It also sells devices that allow drivers to operate autonomous driving features from the front seats. The business also offers pre-installed independent driving software called Autoware in packaged computers.

ispace

Ispace creates micro-robots to find the materials required to sustain human life in space. The business specializes in finding, removing, and distributing lunar ice to clients in cis-lunar orbit. It uses commercially available goods (COTS), and 3D printed materials for quick prototyping, maximizing structural mass efficiency, and cutting the length of the development life cycle. It oversees Team HAKUTO’s technological and commercial development efforts in the Google Lunar XPRIZE Competition. The business successfully placed a privately funded robot on the moon, earning it a $500,000 Milestone Prize in mobility.

Legal Force

Provider of legal contract review management solutions powered by AI and the cloud. The platform’s products, Legal Force and LegalForce Cabinet, are an AI contract analysis tool and contract management system. It offers tools for thorough contract identification and real-time removal of quality variation. It gives users access to a pricing module with a subscription model.

Preferred Infrastructure

The Japanese search engine provider. They are very knowledgeable in distributed systems, natural language processing, and machine learning. Sedue, an NLP-based search tool for websites and corporate networks, is one of the company’s offerings. An NLP-based categorization engine called Bazil is used to examine emails, e-commerce sites, and Twitter. Jubatus is a platform for machine learning that extracts knowledge from massive amounts of data in real-time. The founders predict that their business might be valued at $200 million. The media industry accounts for the bulk of the clients.

AI Medical Service

AIM offers a technique that aids in diagnosing “cancer-related lesions” in the digestive organs through endoscopic inspection. In the clinical setting of endoscopes, the AI software currently being researched and developed uses data from the past and offers diagnostic support through picture analysis.

Atonarp

Miniaturized quantitative mass spectrometer creator. The business has obtained a patent for smart mass spectrometry. It has created the tiniest, plug-and-play, real-time, cloud-connected, AI-enabled mass spectrometer. For semiconductor applications process gas detection and lyophilization process gas detection, respectively, it offers the AMS1000 and LyoSentinel mass spectrometer.

Ubie

AI-powered patient interaction tools for healthcare professionals and online consultations for patients. The product’s features include managing medical information online, a built-in questionnaire for senior patients, and artificial intelligence to assist hospital staff with their initial physical examinations. Other capabilities include editors for doctors, a disease name dictionary, and a summary of the introduction to medicine. AI interviews to achieve task changes between jobs are also included. Additionally, it provides chatbot services so that customers may ask any questions concerning the diseases’ accompanying symptoms.

GROOVE X

For consumers, Groove-X has created a social robot called LOVOT. A total of 50 sensors, including a 360-degree camera, thermal vision, microphone, depth camera, distance & obstacle sensors, and retractable wheels for mobility, are located on the robot’s body. According to the business, ML and DL are used to process the stimuli gathered by these sensors to generate motion in real time. Additional features include an answering machine, baby monitoring, and home patrol.

AdInte

A company that offers retail industry customer engagement solutions powered by IoT. It offers online-to-offline marketing solutions, uses data to entice customers, and advertises in-store. Additionally, it provides measurements of store visits and in-store analyses. An analytics platform and AI-powered beacons are included in its service.

LeapMind

LeapMind Inc. seeks to provide deep learning technology that is less resource and power intensive. The company’s compact form factor and low power usage FPGA is their response to the deep learning difficulty. Both abilities are crucial because deep learning needs a lot of computational power to accomplish speech and image recognition.

LeapMind began providing the DeLTA-Lite tool in April 2018 to aid in developing Deep Learning models. The tool simplifies creating deep learning design models by doing away with the need for specialized hardware, software, and model design knowledge.

Hacarus

The HACARUS-X AI technology from Hacarus Inc., which combines sparse modeling with machine learning technology, has a tiny form factor and a low power need. Hacarus is merging HACARUS-X algorithms with Xilinx’s FPGA Zynq UltraScale + MPSoC in partnership with the semiconductor trade firm PALTEK. Both businesses are using a box computer to implement HACARUS-X algorithms.

Sparse modeling is gaining popularity as a technique that enables humans to comprehend the decision-making process of AI by isolating features from a limited set of learning data.

Ascent Robotics

The strategy used by Ascent is based on their Atlas AI learning architecture. According to the firm, it serves as the “skeleton” on which AI training simulations are built. It has models that can produce natural surroundings, scenarios, and feedback in a virtual world, effectively teaching AI algorithms how to act. The learning efficiency of the AI is said to be 50 times higher when actual and synthetic data are combined than when real data is used alone. By the end of 2020, Ascent hopes to produce a level 4 (totally autonomous) car software business and plans to go public. The PlayStation creator and former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi, is on the startup’s board. It is planning a new financing round of $30–50 million shortly.

Cogent Labs

Cogent Labs, a Tokyo startup founded in 2015, creates AI solutions for time series forecasting, character recognition, and natural language understanding. Tegaki Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program from the firm has a handwriting recognition rate of 99.22%. It targets the file clerk position, which is the most prevalent employment being displaced by AI. Cogent has signed up a massive corporation Softbank as one of its clients, and it is only available in Japanese.

From text-based data like news, social media feeds, and documents, the Kaidoku natural language understanding engine extracts insights. It offers search, filter, and summary options in addition to time-based visualizations. When conventional statistical models typically fall short, the company’s time-series forecasting algorithms evaluate vast volumes of historical data to produce long- and short-term forecasts. This is helpful for applications like securities trading, and Nomura, one of the largest investment banks in the nation, is among the startup’s clients.

Moneytree

Tokyo company Moneytree was established in 2012, creating a platform for aggregating financial data for private individuals and businesses. Moneytree automatically imports users’ assets and transactions onto the platform when they register their bank accounts, credit cards, and other accounts (such as securities holding accounts or loyalty cards). Data is preserved for the subscription’s duration, including current analytics and priceless historical knowledge.

Along with an integration solution for financial firms called MT Link, the company also provides an automated corporate expenditure registration and reimbursement service that operates under similar principles. Currently, the platform has 2,600 service providers nationwide.

Mujin

AI-based motion control software is created by Tokyo firm Mujin for industrial robots. Mujin’s controllers allow robots to “think” through their actions without pre-programming, adapting to reality as they go along, much like most humans do. Traditionally, robots are programmed to do specific jobs or movements.

Although the company does not create robots, it offers controllers that are compatible with most modern robots on the market. For picking, packaging, and sorting operations, Mujin’s solutions are mostly employed in logistics, warehousing, and industrial automation. In collaboration with Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, the business has created the first warehouse in the world without any human employees. It seems certain that some of the largest producers of warehousing robots would try to incorporate Mujin’s cutting-edge motion control technology into their products.

SoftBank Robotics

SoftBank Robotics is a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational corporation SoftBank Group, which specializes in developing and producing robots and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The company is best known for its consumer robot, Pepper, designed for customer service, education, and research applications. Pepper is a humanoid robot that can recognize and respond to human emotions and engage in basic conversation using natural language processing.

SoftBank Robotics also offers a range of robots and AI products, such as the Whiz cleaning robot, the Nao robot, and the NAOqi operating system. These robots and technology are aimed at various industries, including retail, healthcare, education, and research.

Autify

Autify is a software testing and automation platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate web and mobile application testing. The platform is designed to help companies improve the efficiency and accuracy of their testing processes by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks.

One of the key features of Autify is its ability to automatically generate test cases by learning from a user’s manual testing sessions. The platform also allows users to perform visual testing, which helps to ensure that the appearance and functionality of their applications are consistent across different devices and browsers.

NEC 

NEC has worked in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for many years and has developed various AI-based solutions for multiple industries, such as finance, transportation, and public safety.

NEC’s AI technology includes natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning. The company’s AI platform, “NEC the WISE,” provides various AI-based solutions for multiple industries, such as smart cities, retail, and manufacturing. NEC also offers biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition, which can be used for security and surveillance purposes.

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Note: We tried our best to feature the cool AI startups, but if we missed anything, then please feel free to reach out at Asif@marktechpost.com