Aisin Seiki Begins Joint Development with Canada-Based "Element AI" in Artificial Intelligence Field

Oct. 18, 2019

News Release

Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. and Element AI (hereinafter "EAI") began a joint development project on explainability in artificial intelligence.

EAI is a world leading company which Mr. JF Gagne, the company's CEO, established in 2016 together with Mr. Yoshua Bengio (PhD.) of Universite de Montreal to offer artificial intelligence-powered services and software solutions for businesses globally. Prof. Yoshua Bengio is said to be one of the world's three major experts in the field of artificial intelligence and deep learning, receiving the Turing Award (so-called Nobel Prize in computing) in 2019. With a team specializing in research on explainability in artificial intelligence, EAI has an advantage in making important artificial intelligence components on its own and providing advisory services by combining them in response to requests or needs from clients.

Through cooperation with EAI, the Aisin Group aims to solve the black box problem with pass/fail results, which has become a challenge for industrial application of artificial intelligence in automobile-related production engineering in the group, by making the grounds of the pass/fail results explainable, and thereby prevent production quality deterioration due to adoption of artificial intelligence and promote active utilization of artificial intelligence.

In March 2018, the Aisin Group established a consolidated subsidiary engaging in fund business for the purpose of utilizing state-of-the-art technologies of companies with outstanding technologies, within Pegasus Tech Ventures in Silicon Valley, and has been promoting open innovation activities since then.
The Aisin Group will further accelerate collaboration with companies and universities across the world that have
advanced technical capabilities and thereby help promote sustainable industrialization by engineering innovation.

Company name

Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd.

Element AI

Establishment

August 1965

October 2016

Location of Head Office

2-1 Asahi-machi, Kariya, Aichi

6650 Rue Saint-Urbain #500, Montreal, QC H2S 3G9, Canada

Representative

Kiyotaka Ise, President

Jean-Francois Gagne, CEO

Number of employees

119,732 (consolidated)

450

Main business field

Development, manufacture and sale of automotive parts and energy-related products

Development of artificial intelligence-powered services and software solutions for business