Toyota announces the Toyota Research Institute

The announcement

Toyota announced the creation of the Toyota Research Institute at a press conference, and its Chinese-language release describing the new company was dated 6 November 2015^[2]. The organisation was set up as a new company devoted to research and development in artificial intelligence, rather than as a department inside Toyota's existing operations^[2]. Toyota said the company would begin operations in January 2016^[1], and that it would invest $1 billion in it over five years^[1].

Two sites were named. The headquarters would be in Palo Alto, near Stanford University, and a second facility would be near MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts^[1]. That placed the company's staff close to two universities with which it would also be working.

Who would run it

Toyota said Gill Pratt, a former DARPA programme manager, would be the company's chief executive officer^[1]. DARPA is a research agency of the US Department of Defense that funds high-risk projects and, in robotics, runs challenges in which teams build machines to carry out set tasks. Toyota said Pratt had led DARPA projects in neuromorphic systems and robotics, including the DARPA Robotics Challenge, from 2010 to 2015^[1]. Neuromorphic systems are computing designs loosely modelled on the structure of the brain; robotics is the branch of engineering concerned with machines that sense and act in the physical world.

The stated goals

Pratt said the initial goals were to reduce the likelihood of accidents, to make driving accessible to everyone regardless of ability, and to apply Toyota's outdoor mobility technology to indoor environments, particularly for seniors^[1]. The first two point at the car itself: safer vehicles, and vehicles that people who cannot drive today could use. The third goes beyond the car. The same kind of technology that moves a person outdoors could serve someone indoors, where limited mobility can make moving around a home difficult. "Outdoor mobility technology" here means the sensing and moving technology Toyota had developed for vehicles.

The university partnerships

Alongside the company itself, Toyota said it would commit $50 million over five years to joint artificial intelligence research centres with MIT and Stanford^[1]. This is separate from the $1 billion invested in the company, and it matches the two locations chosen for the company's offices: Palo Alto next to Stanford and Cambridge next to MIT.

What the announcement set out

The announcement described the shape of an organisation rather than a product: a separately incorporated company, a five-year budget, a chief executive recruited from a defence research agency, two sites placed next to universities, and a research agreement with those universities. Its stated goals also went beyond the car, to indoor mobility for older people. The announcement was about the founding itself; the company was to start work the following January^[1].