Nishikawa track (on the right), co -founder and general director of the preferred Networks and Daisuke Okanohara, co -founder and general director, with the robotic arm of Fanuc Corp. At the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, March 16, 2018.
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The preferred networks are a little-known name outside Japan, but the unicorn artificial intelligence supported by Toyota has large plans to use deep learning to fix problems with the “real world”-from the end goal of the global.
“For the last 10 years we have worked on the use of artificial intelligence to solve real problems”, general director, Daisuke Okanohara, said CNBC, “Asia management. “ The company ventured into industries as diverse as car transport, healthcare and robots.
The preferred networks caught the attention of big names, such as the automotive giant Toyotawho invested in 2017 10.5 billion yen (USD 95.4 million) in the company in addition to the initial 1 billion yen in 2015.
Preferred Networks is one of the few unicorns in Japan. Although the Japanese startup ecosystem has grown, Japanese companies valued over $ 1 billion, which is only 0.5% of the total number in the world, According to the international working document of the Cash Fund Posted in December.
Startup of deep learning is also in A joint undertaking with Mitsui & Co. in the field of autonomous driving. They both invested in the company, T2 to meet the challenges related to the transport industry, including “extremely long” working hours that stretch at night and the decreasing pool of drivers, said Toro Nishikawa CEO.
But the coefficient was also competition in the car industry. Recognizing the current limitations of the company, Okanohara added: “If we had to solve the problem of ordinary cars, it would be extremely difficult. There are many companies working on autonomous driving and this is a very competitive field. “
Since then, the ambitions of the preferred networks have gone much further. But compared to other AI solutions in a digital space, in which it is “relatively easy to achieve results with users”, dealing with problems with a real world requires more time, said Okanohar.
When asked how much time the company's technologies take to start earning money, Nishikawa said that it could take up to five years in the field like the discovery of materials based on artificial intelligence.
“First, we start joint research with companies, and then we assess whether they can be commercialized. After determining that it can be commercialized, we are working on creating services and products that can be provided to customers, “he said, adding that” in total this process lasts about three to five years before commercialization and practical launch. “
As for the latest achievements of AI, Okanohara said that preferred Networks recognized “very good technology” Deepseeka and “special attention was paid” before he was catapulting to fame, adding that “different players” will soon enter the chip industry.
Preferred networks hope to be among them. Recognition Nvidia Until now, AI's generative strategy has been doing well, but has a design of a graphic processing unit that is not yet “optimal”, said Nishikawa, said that the preferred networks are in the process of “creating more advanced processors” to gain a competitive advantage.
IPO plans
Whether the company will be able to achieve the scale of its ambitions will be turned out. For now, he looks at foreign investors and receives “many inquiries in the field of entertainment, semiconductors and computers”, according to Nishikawa, who noticed that “there are limitations of what we can do in Japan itself, and the world market is much greater than the Japanese market.”
He added that obtaining the first public offer is one of the company's goals. When asked about the time frame of Okanohar, he said: “I think that the need for huge funds will come when we are introducing our hardware products, such as semiconductors, to the world. I think we will try to make this time public, adding that it may take about three to five years.